South Korea rejects North's offer to send defectors’ relatives to Seoul

PanARMENIAN.Net - South Korea on Friday, April 22 rejected the North's highly unusual overture to send North Korean relatives to Seoul to reunite with the 13 restaurant workers it says were abducted in China by spies from the South, the Associated Press reports.

The workers, from a restaurant North Korea says is in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo, were the biggest group to defect since Kim Jong Un took power in North Korea in 2011. Pyongyang typically accuses Seoul of kidnapping or enticing its citizens to defect, but an attempt to reunite the families is extraordinary.

Pyongyang's state media said Friday it had informed Seoul that the North will try to send the relatives through the border village of Panmunjom but did not say when.

Seoul's Unification Ministry responded in a brief statement that it cannot accept the North's request because the restaurant workers decided on their own to resettle in the South.

North Korea has already warned of unspecified retaliation if South Korea refuses to send back the restaurant workers.

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