President Lee Jae Myung speaks at the National Fiscal Strategy Conference held at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung speaks at the National Fiscal Strategy Conference held at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday. [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung on Monday pushed back against a media report claiming that the rifle he fired during a visit to a Marine Corps unit was not actually used by soldiers, calling it "a politically motivated attack based on fabrication, not fact-based reporting — not appropriate conduct for a media outlet."

Lee shared the statement alongside an article headlined "The rifle President Lee fired — soldiers have never seen it? Chosun Ilbo's distortion."

That article criticized a report published Monday by the Chosun Ilbo under the headline "The rifle that made Lee a sharpshooter — soldiers say they've never seen it."

The Chosun Ilbo reported that when Lee visited the Marine Corps' Yeonpyeong unit in Incheon's Ongjin-gun on June 24, he fired a K2C1 rifle and hit all 10 targets — but that active-duty soldiers do not in fact use that rifle.

The Ministry of National Defense pushed back in a press release, saying the K2C1 "has been fielded to approximately 170,000 units across key Alert units and frontline forces, with additional fielding planned in line with the operational priorities of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps." It added that "particularly at the Yeonpyeong unit the president visited, all infantry combat personnel use the K2C1 — making it a clear distortion to report as though the president fired a rifle soldiers have never seen."


moone@heraldcorp.com