South Korea urges North to release four of its citizens including two 'spies'

[AnonOps]

South Korea urges North to release four of its citizens including two 'spies'

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 05 May, 2015, 12:40am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 05 May, 2015, 12:40am

Reuters in Seoul and Washington

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides field guidance at the newly built National Space Development General Satellite Control and Command Centre earlier this month. Photo: Reuters

South Korea yesterday urged Pyongyang to release four of its citizens being held by the North, including two men who told CNN they spied for the South, and a 21-year-old New York University student.

Two men arrested by North Korea in March said in interviews with CNN that they spied for South Korea's intelligence agency, but the cable television news network said it could not verify their accounts.

North Korea said Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil were South Korean nationals working as spies for Seoul's National Intelligence Service from the Chinese border city of Dandong . North Korean state media accused one of them of running an "underground church" and spreading foreign information on USB sticks and SD memory cards in the country.

South Korea has called the allegations "groundless".

On Saturday, Pyongyang said it had arrested a South Korean man with a US green card who was a student at New York University. Joo Won-moon, 21, was detained on April 22 crossing from the Chinese side of the Yalu River, according to North Korea's KCNA news agency.

"As North Korea repeatedly commits anti-humanitarian acts, it will draw stronger criticism from South Koreans and the international community," South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol told reporters yesterday.

In late March, the South sent a message to the isolated North proposing a meeting to discuss the detentions of Choe and Kim, but the North declined to accept it, Lim said.

On Sunday, Choe told CNN he had been a businessman and worked as a spy for three years. He said he was arrested trying to obtain boxes of materials from North Korea related to military operations. Kim said he was a missionary and worked as a spy for nine years.