SEOUL - SOTUH Korean President Roh Moo Hyun will not veto a bill setting up a fraud inquiry into his successor despite opposition calls to do so, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

The bill appointing an independent prosecutor to probe president-elect Lee Myung Bak will be presented to Wednesday's cabinet meeting, said spokesman Cheon Ho Seon.

'The presidential office ... remains unchanged in its decision to support the special counsel bill,' he said.

Mr Lee's conservative opposition Grand National Party had called on Mr Roh to veto the bill, saying its candidate's crushing election victory last week showed most voters do not support the probe.

State prosecutors early this month cleared Mr Lee of links to the case involving his former business partner and a firm called BBK.

But rivals then publicised apparent new video evidence of Mr Lee's past connection to the suspect firm, prompting his parliamentary opponents to vote on Dec 17 for a new inquiry.

Mr Lee has said he is confident he will again be cleared. If so, he has said, those behind the special counsel bill should be held responsible - a reference to the pro-government United New Democratic Party.

In the meantime Lee, 66, is pressing on with setting up a transition team.

Aides quoted by Yonhap news agency said he wants an academic rather than a politician to head it to highlight his desire for a non-partisan and pragmatic government.

They said Mr Lee is expected to announce the transition team and his policy goals on Wednesday.

The aides said one possible transition team chief is Lee Kyung Sook, president of Sookmyung Women's University who is credited with successful administrative reforms.

Another is Chung Un Chan, former Seoul National University head and an economics scholar.

A third is Sohn Byung Doo, president of Sogang University and a former Samsung Group executive.

Mr Lee, a former business executive, takes office on Feb 25, at a crucial stage in international efforts to scrap North Korea's nuclear programmes.

The North is disabling plutonium-producing atomic plants but has yet to list all its nuclear programmes, as required by year-end under a six-nation deal.

Its failure to account for a suspected highly enriched uranium programme to US satisfaction is the main stumbling block.

Mr Lee has said he will take a firmer line with the North, linking Seoul's aid more closely to denuclearisation and pressing for improvements to human rights. -- AFP

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