SEOUL - North Korea has demanded Seoul repatriate a dozen waitresses who fled to the South two years ago, just days after abruptly calling off a planned inter-Korean meeting following weeks of tentative rapprochement. Pyongyang claims the women were kidnapped from a North Korean restaurant in China, while Seoul insists they defected of their own free willThe issue has long been controversial, with Pyongyang claiming the women were kidnapped from a North Korean state-run restaurant in China while Seoul insists they defected of their own free will. "The South Korean authorities should... send our women citizens to their families without delay and thus show the will to improve North-South ties," the statement said. At a landmark summit last month in the Demilitarised Zone that divides the peninsula, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in pledged to pursue denuclearisation and a peace treaty. But Pyongyang "indefinitely" postponed a high-level meeting with the South last week in protest of joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington and also has threatened to cancel the Singapore summit.

Source: Bangkok Post May 20, 2018 02:26 UTC