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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un apologized on Friday for the shooting death of a South Korean fisheries official, as public and political outrage over the killing grew in the south.
The apology came in a letter from North Korea’s United Front Department, which handles cross-border ties, to South Korean President Moon Jae-in a day after South Korean officials said North Korean soldiers killed the man, doused his body with fuel. and they turned it on. on fire.
The North Korean leader’s rare conciliatory message came as Moon faced intense political fallout from the incident, which coincided with a renewed push on his part to engage with North Korea.
“President Kim Jong-un asked to convey his sentiment that he is very sorry that an unexpected and unpleasant incident occurred in our waters that greatly disappointed President Moon Jae-in and his compatriots in the south,” the adviser, Suh, told reporters. Hoon.
The message said the official had been shot as part of measures to prevent people from bringing the coronavirus into the country, Suh said.
The letter, he said, was a response to requests for an explanation of the incident and included a promise to prevent a recurrence. North Korea expressed hope that the incident does not undermine recent confidence-building efforts, Suh said, adding that Moon and Kim had exchanged letters this month.
In his Sept. 8 letter, Moon praised Kim’s “steadfast determination to save lives” and oversee the antivirus and flood recovery job letter, his office said. In a response on Sept. 12, Kim said Moon would win the battle against coronavirus and that “good things” would happen later.
The leaders have held three summits and signed pacts to ease tension since 2018, but relations have soured since the collapse last year of a second summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump, at which Moon volunteered. to mediate.
Hard answer
The shooting of the fisheries official, who had gone missing this week, shocked South Koreans and sparked a barrage of criticism from the opposition and the public, prompting an unusually tough response from Moon, calling it “unforgivable.”
Critics accused Moon of failing to save a citizen’s life while being soft on North Korea, saying the military made no attempt to save him despite seeing him six hours before he was shot dead.
South Korean officials said the man had run into debt and likely tried to defect to the North. But his brother defined it by saying that he had just bought a new boat and that he must have had some kind of accident.
“Not everyone in debt wants to go North,” said the brother, Lee Rae-jin, on social media. He asked what the military was doing “when it was floating around our waters for almost a day.”
Soldiers from the North fired more than 10 shots at the man after he tried to flee without revealing his identity, Suh said, citing the North’s letter.
But the North Korean side denied burning his body, saying the soldiers had burned a flotation device that it was using in accordance with its anti-virus procedures, Suh said.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the apology showed that Kim did not want the incident to escalate, but that it remained highly contentious in the South. “The letter showed Kim’s willingness to quickly resolve the situation, but publicly it is a very sensitive matter,” he said.
The shooting came a day after Moon proposed a new initiative that included North Korea to the UN General Assembly and called for a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, an old North Korean demand.
But opposition politicians scoffed at Moon’s olive branch. “Now is not the time to talk about ending the war,” said Thae Young-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who is now an opposition lawmaker. He requested a formal investigation. – Reuters
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