NO INFORMATION ABOUT NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR'S TAIWAN VISIT CLAIM: MOFA
Central News Agency
2005-07-18 20:00:09
Taipei, July 18 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has no knowledge about a claim by a North Korean defector that he visited Taiwan to promote sales of North Korea-developed ballistic missiles, a senior official said Monday.
MOFA spokesman Michel Lu was responding to a South Korean media report that the defector, who was identified as a member of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) , or parliament, told South Korean intelligence that he once visited Taiwan to introduce an upgraded version of a ballistic missile developed by North Korea.
Lu said the MOFA had no information about the alleged visit.
According to the media report, the North Korean parliamentarian has been in custody at South Korea's intelligence agency since he defected to Seoul "recently."
The report quoted unnamed South Korean government sources as saying the defector was the first SPA member to defect to South Korea.
More than 4,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since 1953. The number has shot up in the past four years, with more than 1,000 reaching South Korea last year alone.
Many of the defectors have arrived in South Korea, mostly via China, to escape famine caused by natural disasters and failed economic policies in their Stalinist homeland.
(By Sofia Wu)
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