Former National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong has rejected allegations that the Moon Jae-in government repatriated two North Korean fishermen in 2019 at the request of North Korea.

Chung clarified his position of the case on Sunday in a statement issued via Rep. Yoon Kun-young of the main opposition Democratic Party.

The former foreign minister said that North Korea did not request first the repatriation of the two fishermen, stressing that South Korea asked the North first if it would accept them because the South is supposed to do so in case of deportation.

The statement came a day after a local media outlet reported that the presidential office of the Moon government forcibly repatriated the two North Koreans in November 2019 at the request of Pyongyang.

Chung also dismissed the Yoon Suk Yeol government and the ruling party's allegations that the fishermen were South Korean nationals according to the South Korean constitution and refugees according to international law.

Chung said the Moon government decided that the fishermen had no sincerity in their intention to request asylum and they were neither defectors nor refugees, but just criminals who committed a heinous crime.