Posted on 06/19/2005 2:24:58 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
SEOUL (Reuters) - A North Korean civilian couple crossed into South Korea and expressed wish to defect, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Saturday.
The couple, identified by the husband's surname "Choi," was spotted sailing in a boat near the border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea early on Friday, the JCS said in a statement.
Choi had been determined to leave the communist state since his mother and younger brother were executed in 2004 for experiments on human bodies, the Inchon Metropolitan Police Agency said in a separate statement.
The JCS also said that a 20-year-old North Korean soldier was found hiding in a truck parked in a public park near the Demilitarized Zone on Friday.
The incidents coincided with a meeting between South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in the North Korean capital Pyongyang on Friday.
At the meeting, Kim was quoted as saying the reclusive state was willing to end its year-long boycott of stalled six-party nuclear talks if the United States showed it respect.
His mother and younger brother were most likely executed "during" experiments on humans, not by his family. Bad translation compounded by lousy journalists and editors again.
ping.
While a N. Korean private 2nd class was wandering around near Cholwon, these two sailed down to the South. I guess that, due to N. Korean escapees, they paid so much of their attention to their Northern border with China that the security on the Southern border became lax.
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