Pyongyang, February 26: North Korea’s state media said on Friday authorities were interrogating four South Koreans who illegally entered its territory, a move that will heighten tensions on the divided peninsula.
There were no further details in a brief dispatch from the North’s official news agency. Fishermen from both the South and the North have drifted into the others’ waters in recent years and are usually repatriated.
But hundreds of South Korean fishermen are believed to be held in the North after being abducted in the 1970s and 1980s although Pyongyang denies it is holding anyone against his will.
The abducted fishermen as well as hundreds of prisoners of war from the 1950-53 Korean War have been a sticking point in ties between the two Koreas which have improved since 2000.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it had no information on who the four people may be and how they were detained.
North Korea has tried to use people it holds as a bargaining chip in dealing the outside world.
North Korea detained three Americans last year who it said were trespassing in areas close to the Chinese border. The last, a missionary, was freed earlier this month.
In August, former U.S. President Bill Clinton went to the North to secure the release of two journalists held there for about four months.
—–Agencies