A group of North Koreans working at a state-run restaurant overseas have defected, South Korea has confirmed.
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Three defectors are thought to have left from a North Korean restaurant in Shanghai and safely moved to a third country, South Korean media reported.
Ethiopia took part in the Korean War and has always been a traditional ally of South Korea, .but relations with Uganda are notable as it has always been a country friendly to North Korea.
South Korea has dismissed a recent series of offers of dialogue by North Korea as a stale rhetoric, calling instead for the North’s honest attitude on its denuclearization.
Pyongyang reacted angrily to April’s defection, insisting that the 12 women were tricked by spies from Seoul who effectively “kidnapped” them with the help of a North Korean manager who also escaped. South Korea said the workers chose to resettle in the South on their own.
Seoul’s unification ministry, which handles cross-border affairs, confirmed the defection in a statement but declined to elaborate, citing safety of the refugees. It has called for Seoul to permit their North Korean family members to have a face-to-face meeting with them.
South Korea’s spy service said earlier this year that North Korea was running about 130 restaurants overseas, mostly in China.
The New Focus International news agency, based in South Korea, first published news of the latest defections.
“With regards to the defection this time, I would like to tell you that our government is dealing with [the defection] according to our custom of handling North Korean defectors”.
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But group defections are rare, especially by staff who work in North Korean restaurants overseas, which are a key source of hard currency for the government in Pyongyang. News stories displayed here appear in our category for worldwide and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.com and The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
