Pyongyang vows to use all possible means to bring back 31 N. Koreans

By Kim Young-jin

North Korea ratcheted up its war of words Saturday over the repatriation of 31 of its citizens. They arrived after their boat drifted into southern waters, and the North threatened to use “every means possible” to bring every single one of them back.

But Seoul, which has tried to return 27 of the group who wish to return, maintained it will proceed by adhering to international law on humanitarian grounds.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Seoul was notified of Pyongyang’s demand for the "unconditional and prompt repatriation of all of its 31 detained inhabitants and their ship through the waters to which they had drifted."

"The DPRK side will not remain a passive onlooker to this case but will use every possible means to solve it," it said, adding that failure to do so would “seriously affect the North-South relations.”

The stepped-up rhetoric comes as observers here say the spat could compound problems between the two Koreas, miles apart over how to reduce high tensions on the peninsula.

The 31 drifted across the tense maritime border in the West Sea on Feb. 5. Initially the entire group said it wanted to return. But four of them, two men and two women, last week expressed their intention to stay in the South.

On Friday, the North refused Seoul’s attempt to repatriate the 27 though the peace village of Panmunjeom, demanding that everyone in the group return.

The Daily NK, a website that delivers new on the North, said those repatriated will face a tough road upon arrival.

Citing defectors living in the South, it predicted they will be interrogated by the National Security Agency over why and how they crossed the border and the South’s interrogation methods. After a month of questioning, they will continue to be monitored tightly, the site said.

Seoul is expected to repeat its demand that the North accept the 27 who have expressed their wish to return, when communication of the liaison office at Panmunjeom opens today.

The North’s mouthpiece media in recent days stepped up its calls for Seoul to unconditionally come to the negotiation table to address tensions on the peninsula, still high after Pyongyang’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November.

Military talks between the two sides collapsed last month over the North’s refusal to account for its role in the shelling and the sinking of a South Korean warship eight months earlier. The attacks killed a total of 50.