North Korea holding 4 South Koreans accused of entering communist country illegally
By Kwang-tae Kim, APThursday, February 25, 2010
NKorea holding 4 SKoreans for illegal entry
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that four South Koreans were in custody on suspicion of entering the country illegally.
The arrests would be the latest detentions of foreigners accused of sneaking into communist North Korea. Weeks earlier, an American missionary who crossed into the country from China was released after 43 days in North Korean custody.
North Korean officials “recently detained four South Koreans who illegally entered” the country, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Friday in a dispatch from Pyongyang. “They are now under investigation.”
The brief report did not identify the South Koreans or say when they allegedly entered North Korea.
The National Intelligence Service, Seoul’s top spy agency, said it was seeking to confirm the report.
A spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said officials had seen the KCNA dispatch and were trying to confirm the details.
“At this moment, our ministry is trying to ensure the safety of citizens in North Korea,” spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters.
The reported detentions come a day after North Korea warned it would wage a “powerful” attack if South Korea and the U.S. forge ahead with planned joint military exercises next month.
South Korea and the U.S., which maintains 28,500 troops in the South, plan to hold annual drills starting March 8. The North sees the exercises as preparation for an invasion, but the U.S. and South Korea say the maneuvers are purely defensive.
The two Koreas remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty.
Last year, two American journalists were arrested near the border with China and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. They were released after former President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate their release.
In December, Korean-American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea on a mission to call attention to alleged human rights abuses in the impoverished nation led by leader Kim Jong Il. He was freed earlier this month.
A South Korean pig farmer reportedly defected to North Korea last year by cutting through barbed wire at the heavily fortified border.
