South Korea dismissed on May 23 a North Korean proposal for military talks as “a bogus peace offensive” and said it was formally rejecting the overture because it lacked a plan to end the North’s nuclear programme.
Advertisement
The notice came a day after North Korea’s National Defence Commission said in an open letter on Friday that South Korea should immediately respond to top North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s proposal for inter-Korean military talks.
In its proposal sent to “military authorities” in Seoul, Pyongyang said: “We propose to hold working-level contact for opening the north-south military authorities’ talks at the date and place both sides deem convenient in late May or early June in order to defuse the military tension on the Korean peninsula and create confidence-building atmosphere between the military authorities of the north and the south”.
Overall, North Korea has about 50,000 to 60,000 workers overseas, mostly in Russian Federation and China, with a mission to bring in foreign currency, according to the National Intelligence Service.
It’s the second known group escape by North Korean restaurant workers dispatched overseas in recent weeks.
Pyongyang has accused Seoul of abducting them, but Seoul strongly denies this.
A combination photo shows a Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) handout of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un released on May 10, 2016, and Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump posing for a photo after an interview with Reuters in his office in Trump Tower, in the. South Korea said the workers chose to resettle in the South on their own.
The unification ministry in South Korea also asked North Korea on Monday to stop its accusations about South Korea raising tensions on the peninsula. A Seoul intelligence official who spoke to local news service Newsis on the condition of anonymity said they are “checking” the report and that verification “could take some time”.
“I am sharing this information as I have confirmed their safety in a third country”, said Jang, who refused to identify the third country or explain how he had acquired the information, citing safety concerns.
Advertisement
The North Korean government has not stopped demanding the return of the 12 defectors, and has even claimed that one of them died from a hunger strike.
