South Korea says missing official ‘attempted to defect to North’

South Korea’s Coast Guard says the South Korean official who was killed by North Korean troops last week was attempting to defect to North Korea.

The South Korean Coast Guard said on Tuesday that it had concluded after an investigation that the fisheries official, whose name has not been publicized, had told North Korean soldiers he wished to defect and they had been aware of his detailed personal information.

“We have confirmed that the North side had secured his personal information that he would only know, including his name, age, hometown and height, and that the missing person had conveyed his willingness to go to the North,” Yoon Sung-hyun, the chief of investigation and intelligence at the South Korean Coast Guard, said.

The 47-year-old official went missing from a government vessel on September 21 while investigating claims of unauthorized fishing near the island of Yeonpyeong, which lies near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea boundary with North Korea.

The South accused North Korean troops of fatally shooting the official and burning his body near the maritime border and called for a joint investigation.

South Korea later claimed that North Korea had written a letter to Seoul expressing regret about the killing and saying the official had been shot to prevent him from potentially bringing the coronavirus into the country. Seoul said Pyongyang had stressed in the letter that North Korean soldiers only burned a flotation device he was using but had not burned the official’s body, saying he had disappeared in the water.

Both sides are searching for the man’s body.

Yoon ruled out the possibility that the missing official had lost his footing or attempted to commit suicide because he was wearing a life vest and a flotation device when detected some 38 kilometers away from where he went missing.

The official’s older brother, Lee Rae-jin, has rejected the government’s initial claim that he might have tried to flee to the North, saying it must have been an accident as he had just gotten a new boat.

Yoon also referred to the more than 58-million-won (49,600-dollar) debt the official owed before his death, saying it was still unclear whether he sought to flee because of that.

The North’s United Front Department, which is in charge of cross-border ties, sent a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office to express regret over the killing of the official.

North Korea, however, warned the South against mobilizing its naval forces under the pretext of launching a search operation, saying such moves in northern waters threatened to raise tensions between the two countries.

Peninsula tensions: North Korea urges South Navy to keep off its waters in missing officer probe

North Korea launches a search operation to find a missing South Korean fisheries official, warning Seoul to keep its forces out of Northern territory.

Moon urges return of inter-Korean hotlines

Meanwhile, the South Korean president called for the restoration of military hotlines with Pyongyang to prevent unexpected incidents on Monday.

Moon told a meeting with senior secretaries that restoring hotlines with the North would facilitate communications and future rescue operations.

He also referred to North Korea’s purported letter of regret, saying it suggested Pyongyang’s desire to avert any breakdown in inter-Korean relations.

Moon also voiced hope that the “unfortunate” incident would eventually turn into an opportunity for the two countries to resume dialog.

In June, tensions between the two countries rose over Seoul’s failure to stop defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets over the border. In response, Pyongyang cut off all communication lines with Seoul and blew up a liaison office building near the border with South Korea.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. They were on a path of rapprochement beginning in January 2018 before US intransigence to relieve any of the sanctions on the North effectively killed diplomacy.

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