North Korea blames Seoul for death of fisheries official

Seoul : North Korea on Friday blamed South Korea for the death of a fisheries official killed at sea last month because Seoul “failed to exercise proper control” over its citizen. The 47-year-old fisheries official was fatally shot by the North’s military while adrift in the North Korean side of the Yellow Sea. He went missing the previous day while on duty near the western border island of Yeonpyeong.

“Explicitly speaking, the recent inglorious incident in the waters of the West Sea of Korea was the result of improper control of the citizen by the South side in the sensitive hotspot area at a time when there are tension and danger due to the vicious virus sweeping the whole of South Korea,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a report. “Therefore, the blame for the incident first rests with the South side,” the KCNA said.North Korea also tried its best to retrieve the body of the official to “no avail”, it added. Meanwhile, the South has called for swift efforts for a joint probe into the killing. “We call for the inter-Korean military hotlines to be reconnected first for communication between the two Koreas,” Cho Hey-sil, deputy spokesperson of the Unification Ministry, said at a regular press briefing. Pyongyang is yet to respond to the South’s joint probe request.