The No. 2 diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan strongly condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations as they agreed to step up cooperation for the North’s denuclearization, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Friday.
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In a carefully stage-managed press conference in Pyongyang, Ko Hyon-Chol, 53, who originally fled North Korea in 2013, “confessed” to attempting to kidnap two girl orphans and take them to the South.
“I committed the unpardonable crime of being involved in attempted child abduction”, Ko was quoted by AFP as telling the news conference.
The military statement came after the North denounced the decision in strong terms, calling South Korean President Park Geun-hye a “rare traitor and a war servant obsessed with confrontation” with her northern rival.
Such choreographed and apparently scripted public confessions are standard practice for foreign or North Korean nationals arrested for subversive activity.
“North Korea needs to immediately stop its arrogant and insolent speech and conduct”, a spokesman said.
Ko said he was sent by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) to the Chinese border city of Dandong to kidnap orphans from North Korea, according to KCNA. Later in 2014, he arrived in South Korea.
“The vice foreign ministers of the three countries shared the view that the North’s pursuit of nuclear and missile development poses a grave and direct threat to them, and hurts peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but the worldwide community as a whole”, the ministry said in a press release.
An advanced US missile defense system will be deployed in a rural farming town in southeastern South Korea, Seoul officials announced Wednesday, angering not only North Korea and China but also local residents who fear potential health hazards that they believe the USA system might cause. North Korea has threatened unspecified “physical” measures in retaliation while China suspects the system would help USA radars track its missiles.
Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old college student, was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour in March for stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel.
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During his trip on Friday, angry residents protesting the government’s decision to deploy the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) blocked Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn’s auto for hours and threw water bottles and eggs at him.
