Korean Land Minister calls off Yangpyeong highway project

Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Won Hee-ryong attends an emergency government-party meeting at the National Assembly on July 6. [Photo by Yonhap]

South Korea’s Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Won Hee-ryong said on Thursday that he is scrapping the project to build a highway that links the city of Seoul and Yangpyeong, a county in Gyeonggi Province, citing rumors instigated by the opposition party.

“We will put a full stop to the Seoul-Yangpyeong expressway project from this point of time,” Won said after an emergency government-party meeting at the National Assembly on Thursday. “We cannot waste national power while the Democratic Party’s propaganda and framing are at play.”

The Democratic Party and other oppositions have been raising suspicions that the land ministry tried to change the route of the Seoul-Yangpyeong expressway to give preferential treatment to First Lady Kim Keon-hee’s family.

A route, which had passed a preliminary feasibility study two years ago, was abruptly changed in May, and the opposition claims that the change was made to benefit Kim’s family that owns land in Gangsang-myeon in Yangpyeong District, where the new route ends.

The Seoul-Yangpyeong expressway spans 29 kilometers from Ogeum-dong in Songpa District in Seoul to Gangsang-myeon.

“As long as First Lady Kim does not move or dispose of her family graveyard, there will be no end to the Democratic Party’s fly-by-night propaganda, so we will remove the cause,” Won said.

Won urged that the Democratic Party should not inflate suspicions solely based on speculations and circumstances and instead formally accuse the land minister.

“If the investigation finds the suspicions ungrounded, the Democratic Party must take down its name,” the minister said.