Seoul’s Unification Ministry has confirmed that South Korea has repatriated six North Koreans who were earlier rescued at sea earlier this year after their ships veered across the de facto maritime border.
The North Koreans were taken across the Northern Limit Line on Wednesday morning after they had repeatedly indicated their desire to go home after being picked up by South Korean authorities in separate vessels in March and May, according to the ministry.
Despite Seoul’s numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact Pyongyang about their return, the ministry claims that the repatriation was successfully completed with North Korean authorities’ cooperation.
Lee Jae-myung, the newly elected president of South Korea, is working to strengthen ties between the two countries, which are still technically at war after hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Lee said at a press conference last week to mark his first month in office that Seoul should work with its ally, the United States, to improve relations, and that stifling dialogue would be a “foolish act.”
In one of the first steps toward reconciliation, the Lee administration took the first step by turning off loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korea propaganda across the inter-Korean border last month.
The move was cited as helping “to restore trust in inter-Korean relations” and “promote peace on the Korean Peninsula” by South Korea’s Ministry of National Defence at the time.
Source: Aljazeera
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