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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has apologized for the killing of a South Korean official in its territorial waters, the presidential office in Seoul reported on Friday.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, Kim called the incident “a shameful case” and apologized for “disappointing President Moon Jae-in and the South Koreans.”
On Thursday, the South Korean Defense Ministry accused North Korea of killing one of its officers, who had disappeared at the border between the two countries, and of cremating his body, an act described as “brutal”.
The ministry said explanations were required from Pyongyang, according to the released statement.
The 47-year-old officer had disappeared on Monday while aboard a Ministry of Fisheries boat at the time near Yeonpyeong Island, about ten kilometers from the western maritime border, the tense and disputed Northern Line.
North Korean troops “found the man in its waters and committed a brutal act by shooting him and burning his body, according to the exhaustive military analysis we made of various intelligence data,” the ministry note said.
The South Korean vessel was checking for possible unauthorized fishing near the inter-Korean maritime border, where there have already been several naval incidents between the two countries and deadly attacks attributed to North Korea.
The incident is expected to deepen tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang.
Relations between the two Koreas remain tense, especially after the stalemate in nuclear negotiations between North Korea and the United States.
In June, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its territory, in retaliation for South Korea’s civilian pamphlet campaign launched against North Korea.
At the height of their Cold War rivalry, North Korea often forcibly towed South Korean fishing boats operating near the maritime border, keeping some of the crew on board and returning others.
South Korean defections to North Korea are very rare. But more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea in the past 20 years for political and economic reasons.
