A Canadian pastor being held in North Korea has admitted to planning “subversive plots” against the communist nation during a public interrogation, Pyongyang’s official news agency reported.
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Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, the lead pastor of Light Presbyterian Church in Toronto, has been detained by the North Korean government, and he has not been in contact with family or friends since January 31.
Quoting KCNA, AFP said Lim had admitted to carrying out “subversive plots and activities in a sinister bid to build a religious state in the DPRK”, using North Korea’s official name.
His goal was to “overturn its social system by taking advantage of the hostile policy against it sought by the South Korean authorities and set up a base for building a religious state”, KCNA quoted him as saying.
The church said in March that North Korea detained Lim during one of his regular humanitarian missions there.
However, he said missionaries like himself and Reverend Lim do not limit their work to only humanitarian aid and they are unapologetic about it.
The church’s press release, also sent to VICE News, said that “the humanitarian aid projects that Mr. Lim has both initiated and supported in the DPRK have been for the betterment of the people”.
During that time his missions to distribute food and clothes had expanded to a significant network of businesses, including factories, petrol stations, a fishing fleet and farms.
Kim Hyong Jun, North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow, had told Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday that Pyongyang is a nuclear power and that it is not interested in unilateral calls for denuclearization.
The report claimed that this had been only the North’s second ever contest of its kind, as the military state has been celebrating what it regards as the anniversary of Victory Day – in reality, this week marked 62 years since an armistice agreement brought a truce to the Korean War.
Evans Revere, former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, also said North Korea is reacting to the Iran nuclear deal. Lim, who spoke in Korean, did not have that luxury.
China has touted its intervention within the 1950-53 Korean War as an “indelible mark on historical past” of its friendship with North Korea after the North’s chief Kim Jong-un paid tribute to the Chinese troopers killed through the warfare.
Pyongyang’s latest comments echo a previous proposal in Japan, which it said it could temporarily suspend its nuclear testing if the US suspended its joint military exercises with South Korea.
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A recent report by US researchers warned that North Korea was poised to expand its nuclear programme over the next five years and, in a worst-case scenario, could possess 100 atomic weapons by 2020.
