South Korea yesterday tried to repatriate 27 North Koreans whose boat drifted across the border, but the North refused to accept them amid a row about four others who chose to stay behind, officials said.
The incident could further fuel heightened cross-border tensions, as US and South Korean troops stage major military exercises that the North has branded a rehearsal for invasion.
The 20 men and 11 women were in a fishing boat that crossed the tense Yellow Sea border in thick fog on Feb. 5.
Seoul said on Thursday that two men and two women had chosen to stay in the South — a claim rejected by Pyongyang, which said all 31 wanted to come home.
An attempt to send the 27 home through the frontier village on Panmunjom at 11am failed when no North Korean officials turned out to meet them, the South’s unification ministry said.
“We are still waiting for North Korea’s response, but we cannot wait forever,” spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.
“We will make a decision if North Korea keeps silent,” she said.
Pyongyang late on Thursday repeated demands that Seoul return all 31, rejecting assertions that four of them want to stay in the South.
In a statement on the official news agency, it accused the South of “despicable unethical acts” and said the group had been held hostage in a bid to fuel cross-border confrontation.
It said their boat had drifted in fog and all those on board had demanded they be sent home, but Seoul had pressured them to remain in the South “by appeasement, deception and threat.”
“This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation to the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea],” a statement attributed to the North’s Red Cross said.
Seoul’s Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told parliament the four had not been forced to stay.
“We made a decision after respecting their free will,” he said.
Won Sei-hoon, the South’s spy agency chief, told legislators separately that Seoul would not change its position “whatever North Korea may say.”
The four are the 38-year-old boat captain, a 44-year-old jobless man, a 21-year-old nurse and a 22-year-old female statistician.
The captain apparently feared punishment if sent back and decided to stay when he saw how different life in the South is, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.
Security officials reportedly took the North Koreans on a tour of Seoul and showed them videos of the South’s affluence.
“Relations could be strained further [by the defections],” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University.
He said the North could launch fresh provocations if Seoul continues to maintain its tough stance against Pyongyang.
“Nevertheless, I don’t think there will be any immediate military action by North Korea just over this case for a while,” he said, adding that Pyongyang was desperate to improve ties with Washington in return for food and economic assistance.
The South normally returns North Koreans who drift across the border by accident and who express a wish to go home. Those who wish to stay have an automatic right to live in the South.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS