Despite an agreement to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, North Korea’s demands put a pall on talks with the South.
A week after North Korea said it would send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, the regime’s demands have taken on a sinister pattern.
Reports emerged Tuesday that North Korea demanded the South return defectors who fled the totalitarian regime. That came after requiring that South Korea pay the North’s Olympic costs and an agreement by the United States and South Korea to suspend a planned joint military exercise.
The demands came to light since last week’s talks between North and South Korea — the first sit-down between the two countries in more than two years.
“This is why all those crotchety hawks evinced such skepticism at North Korea’s talks,” tweeted Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University in South Korea. “We all saw this coming.”
The South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo reported Tuesday that the North demanded the return of 12 women who escaped in 2016 from their jobs at restaurant in Ningbo, China, a demand the paper said the South is legally bound to refuse.
South Korea’s government said the timing is too sensitive to comment, the newspaper said.
The North has warned that it will not agree to more reunions for families split by the Korean War unless the defectors, and another woman who fled from elsewhere, are returned.
The talks last week occurred after the U. S. agreed to South Korea’s request to postpone a large military exercise, which usually involves 30,000 American troops and 200,000 South Koreans, until after the Olympics are held Feb.
