Seoul ‘strongly demands’ return of detainees in NKorea

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL (AA) - South Korea has called on Pyongyang to return four of its citizens being detained in North Korea -- the latest of whom was paraded at a press conference in the North earlier Friday.

Go Hyeon-cheol, 53, stands accused of attempting to abduct North Korean orphans, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

The North is understood to have arrested Go as a suspected collaborator with the South’s National Intelligence Service -- Pyongyang claimed earlier this year that Seoul was behind the abduction of more than a dozen of its restaurant workers based in China.

South Korean records show that nearly 30,000 North Koreans have defected since the 1990s.

The South welcomes escapees from the North, but inter-Korean travel is heavily restricted and most defectors risk their lives to escape their homeland.

“We strongly demand North Korea swiftly release our detained nationals, including Mr. Go Hyeon-cheol,” read a statement from Seoul’s unification ministry.

The prospects for foreign prisoners in the North look bleak for now, as Pyongyang has been making threats over the decision by South Korea and the United States to deploy a powerful missile defense system on the peninsula by the end of next year.

Other sources of protest include Washington’s recent sanctions targeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the first time.

Pyongyang also said it would cut off what exists of indirect diplomatic contact with the U.S. and handle its current American prisoners -- a college student and a man in his 60s currently serving lengthy hard labor sentences -- under martial law guidelines.

The other three South Korean detainees were arrested between 2013 and 2014.