South Korea’s unification ministry said Tuesday that a small number of North Korean restaurant staff have recently escaped their workplace in China.
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“There is no change of position from our government that North Korea’s denucleartization should be the top priority in regard to any dialogue with North Korea”, South Korea’s defense ministry said.
North Korea’s surveillance cameras sit on the top of a steel tower to overlook the south, near the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea, March 30, 2016.
Kim mentioned the need for inter-Korean military talks during his speech at North Korea’s seventh congress of its ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (DPRK) that lasted for four days through May 9.
South Korea’s conservative President Park Geun Hye insists Seoul would only consider engaging in substantive dialogue with Pyongyang if the North takes a tangible step towards denuclearisation.
In April, a group of 13 North Koreans who had worked at a North Korean-run restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo defected to South Korea. The head of the news agency, Jang Jin-sung, told the Journal he expects the workers to be safely inside South Korea within two weeks. “It is our government’s position that we can not give you details because of safety of North Korean defectors, diplomatic matter, and relation with neighboring countries”.
An official said the ministry could not confirm whether they had entered South Korea, how many workers had defected, and where they now were. It has called for Seoul to permit their North Korean family members to have a face-to-face meeting with them.
North Korea and the United States blamed each other for the collapse of the deal.
North Korea hand picks workers who are loyal to the regime and sends them overseas to work at restaurants.
Seoul and Pyongyang have been de jure at war following the signing of an armistice at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
South Korean officials believe overseas North Korean restaurants have been suffering economically since stronger worldwide sanctions were applied against North Korea over its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.
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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.
