Seoul rejects N. Korea’s offer of family meetings for defected restaurant staff

Posted on : 2016-04-23 17:00 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Offer comes after seven waitresses who didn’t defect gave an interview to CNN in Pyongyang
Choe Hye-hong
Choe Hye-hong

In connection with a group defection to South Korea of 13 North Korean employees at the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, a city in China’s Zhejiang Province, North Korea’s Red Cross said on Apr. 22 that it would allow their’ family members in North Korea to visit Seoul to see them, but the South Korean government rejected this proposal.

On Friday, Ri Chung-bok, chair of the North Korean Red Cross’s central committee, sent a message to Kim Sung-joo, president of South Korea’s Red Cross, in which he accused South Korea of “kidnapping, abducting and detaining” the 13 workers. “Once again, we gravely notify you that we have agreed to send their family members to Seoul by way of Panmunjeom in line with their earnest request,” Ri said in the message.

This message appears to be the next in a sequence of actions that began with an interview with CNN on Apr. 21 by the other seven staff members of the Ryukyung Restaurant, who have returned to North Korea. During the interview, the former waitresses contended that the restaurant manager and a South Korean businessperson had deceived their colleagues on the orders of the South Korean government and had planned and carried out the trip to South Korea.

Immediately after this interview, North Korea issued a statement by the spokesperson of the North Korean Red Cross’s central committee that said, “The North Korean employees must be given a public press conference right away so that they can receive the fair judgment of public opinion. In line with the family members' ardent appeals, we will send them to Panmunjeom, or even to Seoul if need be, so that they can meet their children directly."

In a government position statement issued on Friday afternoon, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, “The group defection of the North Korean overseas restaurant staff took place completely according to their own free will. We cannot accept the request for a family meeting included in the notification made in the name of the chairman of the central committee of North Korea’s Red Cross.”

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Related stories

Most viewed articles