SEOUL, President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday pledged that his presidential office will not unnecessarily interfere in the military command system, criticizing officials of the previous Moon Jae-in administration for conducting undue probes into military leaders.

Yoon made the pledge at a meeting with the commanders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps at the Gyeryongdae military headquarters, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, earlier in the day, Yoon's spokesperson Kang In-sun said in a statement.

"That would never happen in our government, for a presidential administrator to investigate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or call the chief of staff," Yoon was quoted as saying by Kang.

Yoon was referring to a probe by a presidential official into then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Park Han-ki in July 2019, when the military was under fire for failing to detect a small wooden boat carrying four North Koreans until the boat made it all the way to a South Korean border port.

In January 2019, it was belatedly made public that a presidential official held a meeting with then-Chief of Staff of the Army Kim Yong-woo in September 2017.

"Our government will not unnecessarily interfere with the military command system," Yoon told military leaders.

"I always trust the military and believe that the establishment of a military command system is the foundation of the military as it is," Yoon said.

Source: Yonhap News Agency