Park Jie-won, former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), voiced his opinion on President Yoon Suk-yeol’s dinner with four lawmakers known as the “key Yoon aides” ahead of a dinner with the People Power Party (PPP) leadership in his residence recently. Park said, “When it comes to President Yoon Suk-yeol’s politics, the key Yoon aides come first before all else,” and asked, “Then what becomes of the rest of the PPP leadership?”

Park shared his opinion in Guest from Yeouido, a KBC show he appeared in on November 28 and added, “That’s not how you do politics.”

Park also spoke about the People Power Party reaching an agreement with the Democratic Party of Korea on a parliamentary inspection and said, “This would not have been possible without the approval of President Yoon Suk-yeol. So I thought, well President Yoon Suk-yeol has been in office for seven months now and I suppose he approved because he realized the importance of public sentiment.” He then went on to say, “After floor leader Joo Ho-young, the second person to be embraced in the presidential residence should be Lee Jae-myung. That way the people would be impressed. But, of course, the key Yoon aides came first.”

The former NIS director continued and said, “There are (both) formal and informal meals in the presidential residence. So you should disclose those you need to disclose, but there are also occasions that don’t need to be made public.” He argued, “The president probably made several requests when eating with the key Yoon aides first, and not disclosing things like that is politics.” He asked, “If he only had dinner with the key Yoon aides and their spouses, what does that make the rest of the PPP leadership and the other lawmakers?” He added, “That’s why announcing this in such a clumsy way shows that President Yoon Suk-yeol is unskillful in politics.”

As for the president not meeting Lee Jae-myung, Park said, ”He has not once met with the opposition party in the seven months since he became president, and there has never been such a president before,” and argued, “He claims he is not seeing Lee Jae-myung because of the so-called legal risk, but even the Constitution stipulates the presumption of innocence, so the president should meet him.” Park continued and said, “How good it would be if the president met the opposition and engaged in governance according to the wishes of the people--ask them to pass the budget and bills concerning the people’s livelihoods.” He pointed out, “Meeting his own people, the key Yoon aides, and the People Power Party leadership is not communication. That’s just a secret pact.”