NK demands the return of waitresses

NORTH Korea has demanded that Seoul repatriate a dozen waitresses who fled to the South two years ago, just days after abruptly calling off a planned inter-Korean meeting following weeks of tentative rapprochement.

The issue has long been controversial, with Pyongyang claiming the women were kidnapped from a North Korean state-run restaurant in China while Seoul insists they defected of their own free will. But the restaurant’s manager said in a recent interview he had lied to the women and blackmailed them into following him under the orders of the South’s spy agency.

The fate of the women could jeopardise relations between the two countries, said a statement from the North’s Red Cross carried by the official KCNA news agency late on Saturday.

“The South Korean authorities should ... send our women citizens to their families without delay and thus show the will to improve North-South ties,” the statement said.

US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday discussed North Korea’s recent threats to cancel its unprecedented summit with Washington. After weeks of warm words and diplomatic backslapping, Pyongyang abruptly threatened to pull out of the planned summit next month because of US demands for “unilateral nuclear abandonment”, according to the North’s KCNA.