By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
SEOUL, South Korea– North Korea released Yu Seong-jin, a South Korean employee for Hyundai Asan Corporation, on Thursday after detaining him for 137 days on charges of denouncing North Korea’s political system and persuading a North Korean to defect.
A North Korean official has said, “(Yu) criticized our honorable regime with malignant intention, interfered with the sovereignty of our republic, and committed grave and serious acts that violated relevant law.”
South Korea and Hyundai Group have been holding negotiations with the North to free Yu for the past two months. Hyun Jung-eun, the president of Hyundai Group, has actually been in North Korea for the past several days negotiating Yoo’s release with Pyongyang. Hyundai Group is South Korea’s biggest corporate investor in North Korea.
Yoo Seong-jin talking to reporters following his release (Source: AP)
Yoo was released to South Korean officials in Kaesong, a North Korean town where a joint industrial park is run by the two Koreas, and he has crossed the border and has been reunited with his family.
Inter-Korean relations have been at the lowest point in years since a conservative president was elected in South Korea last year, but Yoo’s release is seen as a sign that the North could be ready to take a more conciliatory approach with its southern neighbor, as well as revive private business ventures between the two countries. However, the North is still holding four South Korean fishermen who were captured by the North when their boat strayed into North Korean waters two weeks ago.
Accordingly, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Research Institute for National Unification said, “It is still too early to say that this will lead to a resumption of official dialogue between the two sides.” The two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty following the Korean War, which ended in 1953, and are technically still at war.
For more information, please see:
BBC – N Korea releases S Korea worker – 13 August 2009
Donga Ilbo – NK Frees Detained S. Korean Worker after 137 Days – 14 August 2009
NYT – South Korean Worker Freed by North – 13 August 2009
