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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| ROK asks North to send officials to resolve repatriation feud |
| 2011-03-09 |
| SEOUL, March 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea can send officials to South Korea, if it wants, to confirm whether some of its nationals stranded here are actually willing to defect, a senior official at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday. Speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, however, the official voiced objections to the North's demand that they meet their families in the North and directly deliver their opinions. "They may be blackmailed or put under duress," the official said. "Instead, it would be possible for North Korean officials to come down to South Korea if they want to confirm (the would-be defectors' decisions) on their own." The two Koreas, already locked in heightened military tensions, have been at odds over the repatriation of 31 North Koreans -- 11 men and 20 women -- who strayed across the Yellow Sea border into South Korean waters last month. Of them, 27 expressed their wish to return home while the remaining four wished to defect, South Korean authorities said after weeks of questioning. The Cheong Wa Dae official said the United Nations Command that oversees the truce, which effectively ended the Korean War in the 1950s, also independently confirmed the intentions of the four North Koreans to remain here. South Korea has been seeking to handle the issue according to international law and on a humanitarian basis. It tried to send back 27 of the North Koreans through the truce village of Panmunjom but Pyongyang refused to accept them, urging Seoul to repatriate all 31. The North said it can't trust the results of the South's probe. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Slave escapes are bad for discipline on the plantation. |
| Posted by: Goober Throlumble3538 2011-03-09 14:36 |