World Crisis Online

By Bomi Lim and Seonjin Cha

March 4 (Bloomberg) — North Korea refused to open gates with the South to allow the return of 27 of its citizens who had drifted across the western sea border by boat last month, demanding four who had requested to stay also be repatriated.

North Korean officials said they wanted all 31 people to be transferred and didn’t open the border, Lee Jong Joo, a spokeswoman at the Unification Ministry in Seoul, said by phone. The North Koreans were returning to a hostel, she said. The South Korean government will next week continue discussing the matter with the North, Lee said, without elaborating.

The latest conflict risks worsening relations between the two countries, which exchanged artillery fire in November after North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said on March 1 his country was open to talks with North Korea.

The government in Seoul “pressured them to remain in South Korea by appeasement, deception and threat,” North Korea’s Red Cross said late yesterday in a statement carried by the state- run Korean Central News Agency, referring to the four people who didn’t attempt to return today. “This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation.”

“The incident dims prospects of any talks between the two nations as it gives a reason for North Korea to doubt South Korea’s sincerity in wishing to engage in dialogue,” said Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “It also gives an excuse for North Korea to detain South Koreans if any similar incident occurs in the future.”

Walk Out

The first talks between the two sides in four months collapsed in February after North Korean military officials walked out, refusing to acknowledge their country’s role in sinking a South Korean warship in March that killed 46 sailors.

South Korea “is ready to engage in dialogue with the North anytime with an open mind,” President Lee said in a national address on March 1 to mark the anniversary of a 1919 independence movement against Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.

More than 20,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, leaving the two nations technically at war, according to estimates by the Unification Ministry.

The number of North Koreans who defected to South Korea fell for the first time in five years last year as North Korean leader Kim Jong Il tightens border security, according to Seoul- based rights groups, including the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.

In 2010, 2,423 North Koreans are estimated to have arrived in South Korea, down from a record 2,927 in 2009, according to the Unification Ministry.

North Korea has boosted cooperation with China since the mid-2000s to crack down on defectors, according to Lee Young Hwan, head of research at the Citizens’ Alliance, which helped 400 North Koreans enter South Korea since 1996.

–With assistance from Sungwoo Park in Seoul. Editors: Mark Williams, Sam Nagarajan