S Korea prez calls Dior bag scandal 'political gimmick'

SEOUL: The release of hidden camera footage showing South Korea's first lady accepting a Dior bag as a gift was a "political manoeuvre", President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday, but vowed to draw clearer lines to ensure such incidents do not happen again.

The comments were his first public response to a controversy, dubbed the "Dior bag scandal" by local media, that has roiled his ruling party ahead of a key election in April. Yoon stopped short of apologising and pointed out the fact that the footage, filmed in Sept 2022, was released in Nov 2023. The pastor who offered the $2,250 gift and secretly filmed the exchange claimed to have ties to Yoon's wife Kim Keon Hee's father who died when she was a child, Yoon said.