Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday that Japan will protect the human rights of four North Korean defectors who arrived by boat in northern Japan, suggesting they may be allowed to go to South Korea as they reportedly wish.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon indicated Seoul was willing to accept them.
The four -- a couple and their two sons -- arrived at Fukaura port in Aomori, 575km northeast of Tokyo, on Saturday morning. They were taken to Goshogawara police station for questioning.
Police said yesterday the family told investigators they originally planned to go to South Korea after leaving Chongjiin in North Korea last Sunday on a 7.3m-long wooden boat without a roof.
But the four said they decided to go to Niigata, a Japanese port city south of Aomori, instead, because they feared security near the border between South and North Korea would be heavy, police said.
Officials will discuss where the four should go, local police official Noriyuki Osanai said. Japanese newspapers and Kyodo News agency reported the couple said they wanted to go to South Korea. Osanai said he could not comment on the reports.
"Four defectors from North Korea came to Japan. We promise to respond to this issue ... from a humanitarian viewpoint," Abe said.
Song told reporters in Jeju, South Korea, that the issue would be handled in a way that respects their wishes under humanitarian principles.
Thousands of North Koreans have fled their impoverished communist homeland to escape hunger and harsh political oppression in recent years, many taking a long and risky land journey through China to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries on their way to asylum.
More than 10,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953, most of them arriving in recent years.
Between late last year and early this year, as many as 20 people sought asylum at the Japanese consulate in Shenyang, a Chinese city 200km from China's border with North Korea, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday.
Nine are already in Japan and the others are expected to follow soon, bringing the total number of people who fled North Korea to stay in Japan to about 150, the newspaper said.
They include Japanese wives of North Korean men and their children.
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