The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has demanded the return of a group of women that the DPRK said were abducted two years ago by South Korean intelligence.
This is a precondition to implement the part of humanitarian issues in the joint declaration by the leaders of the two sides last month at an inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom, the Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman for the Central Committee of the Red Cross Society of the DPRK as saying Saturday.
According to the spokesman, the South Korean cable broadcasting JTBC recently put it that the "case of group defection of the north's employees" in April 2016 was proven to be a conspiratorial farce concocted by former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
"Those women citizens of the DPRK were proven to have been forcibly abducted by the puppet Intelligence Service by interviews of a criminal involved in the case and victims," said the spokesman.
The spokesman blamed South Korean authorities for "adopting an unequivocal stance to shun the demand of the public at home and abroad."
How South Korea tackles the case "would have great impact on deciding the prospect of settling the humanitarian issue between the north and the south clarified in the Panmunjom Declaration," he added.
Twelve DPRK women were abducted two years ago from a third country where they were working to South Korea, says Pyongyang.
