Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn called for tightened discipline among public servants Wednesday, deploring a sexual harassment case involving a South Korean diplomat in Chile.
"I urge each minister and vice minister to more strictly and thoroughly strengthen discipline in officialdom so that such a case will never happen again," Hwang told a cabinet meeting.
Hwang, who serves as acting head of state because President Park Geun-hye was suspended for her involvement in a corruption scandal, said the sex scandal has seriously hurt South Korea's national image abroad.
At a parliamentary session, Foreign Minister Yun-Byung-se expressed regret and promised to take strong action against the diplomat who returned home Tuesday for a ministry investigation. "I take it very seriously."
The councilor in charge of cultural affairs in Chile was accused of making improper physical contact with a 14-year-old Chilean girl during a Korean-language session in September.
In early December, a Chilean television station filmed the diplomat's sexual harassment of another woman who was acting as a teenage girl receiving a Korean language lesson. He was seen trying to hug and kiss a girl, saying he liked her eyes, lips, and breasts.