N. Korea to conduct rare border handover
Source: Agencies |
August 12, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NORTH Korea said yesterday it would return a South Korean pastor, who visited Pyongyang illegally, to his homeland through a rare crossing at a truce village that straddles the border.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said Han Sang-ryol would cross back into South Korea on Sunday at the heavily armed Panmunjom border point, where the truce halting the Korean War was signed in 1953.
In the past, the post has been used as the point to return the remains of US soldiers killed during the war.
The handover comes as tensions rise on the divided peninsula with the torpedoing earlier this year of a South Korean warship - which Seoul blames on North Korea - as well as a series of military drills and retaliatory artillery fire.
The KCNA report said Han had requested to return via Panmunjom, and that North Korea's Red Cross had sent its South Korean counterparts a message urging Seoul to take due measures to ensure safe return.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said such a crossing was quite rare.
It confirmed the pastor had entered North Korea illegally. South Koreans must seek permission from their government to enter North Korea as the two Koreas are still technically at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Han entered North Korea by air on June 12, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. It said authorities were planning to detain him as soon as he steps on to South Korean soil.
Panmunjom, about 50 kilometers north of Seoul, is considered one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. Stony-faced soldiers the countries face off, sometimes only metres apart, on a daily basis.
Seoul meanwhile sent a message to North Korea urging the release of the crew of a South Korean fishing boat, detained by a North Korean patrol off the east coast at the weekend.
Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said North Korea had accepted the message delivered through a Western military hotline between the two countries.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said Han Sang-ryol would cross back into South Korea on Sunday at the heavily armed Panmunjom border point, where the truce halting the Korean War was signed in 1953.
In the past, the post has been used as the point to return the remains of US soldiers killed during the war.
The handover comes as tensions rise on the divided peninsula with the torpedoing earlier this year of a South Korean warship - which Seoul blames on North Korea - as well as a series of military drills and retaliatory artillery fire.
The KCNA report said Han had requested to return via Panmunjom, and that North Korea's Red Cross had sent its South Korean counterparts a message urging Seoul to take due measures to ensure safe return.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said such a crossing was quite rare.
It confirmed the pastor had entered North Korea illegally. South Koreans must seek permission from their government to enter North Korea as the two Koreas are still technically at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Han entered North Korea by air on June 12, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. It said authorities were planning to detain him as soon as he steps on to South Korean soil.
Panmunjom, about 50 kilometers north of Seoul, is considered one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. Stony-faced soldiers the countries face off, sometimes only metres apart, on a daily basis.
Seoul meanwhile sent a message to North Korea urging the release of the crew of a South Korean fishing boat, detained by a North Korean patrol off the east coast at the weekend.
Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said North Korea had accepted the message delivered through a Western military hotline between the two countries.
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