SEOUL – South Korea has been drawing up plans to buy the release of more than 1,000 of its citizens held in North Korea, hoping such aid can help it improve ties with its impoverished neighbour, local media reported yesterday.
The south wants to entice the north into freeing South Korean civilians abducted and prisoners held since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war through cash, materials and food, the Chosun Ilbo reported state officials as saying.
North Korea has cut almost all ties with the south in anger at the policies of president Lee Myung-bak, who took office in February and ended a free flow of aid to his prickly neighbour.
Analysts said the north’s faltering economy had been dealt a blow by the loss of such aid and would be further for not living up to the terms of an international nuclear disarmament deal.
South Korea has repeatedly offered cash to the north to return its citizens but Pyongyang has not accepted, Yonhap news agency quoted officials as saying. The south’s unification ministry would not confirm the reports but said the return of its citizens was a top concern. Mr Lee has said he was willing to pay to win their release.
Yonhap reported last week the north, which denies holding South Koreans, had approached Seoul about working out a plan to exchange South Koreans for cash.
Japan has hit North Korea with sanctions and suspended aid, demanding Pyongyang settle problems caused by abducting Japanese nationals decades ago.
North Korea, with estimated annual economic output of about $20 billion (€14 billion), has lost out on at least $1 billion in aid the south had been supplying each year because of the strain in ties.
North Korea’s communist party newspaper warned of a nuclear disaster unless Mr Lee’s ruling conservative Grand National Party ended what Pyongyang sees as a policy of confrontation.
Washington called for a suspension of heavy fuel oil aid to the energy-starved north this month after Pyongyang refused to accept a system to check claims it made about its atomic arms programme. – (Reuters)