South Korea President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday accepted the resignation of her chief public affairs aide over the “disgraceful” sexual harassment scandal involving her former presidential spokesman.
Park formally accepted the resignation of Lee Nam-ki, who offered to resign last week and to take responsibility for the incident involving now-dismissed presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung, Wall Street Journal reports. Lee was not directly involved in the alleged assault.
Yoon became a target of an investigation in Washington over an alleged sexual assault on a young Korean-American intern during Park’s visit to the United States. Yoon secretly returned to South Korea in the middle of the trip and the presidential Blue House, particularly his immediate supervisor Lee, was accused of handling the situation poorly, Korea JoongAng Daily reports.
Park begged pardon for the “unsavory” scandal and has apologized to the woman and her parents. Park also pledged Seoul’s active cooperation in the investigation by the US authorities.
Lee’s resignation is the latest humiliation for Park’s administration, which has been dogged by several high-ranking resignations since taking office.
