The Hindu : Row over asylum seeker hots up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 15, 2002

International

International

Row over asylum seeker hots up

BEIJING JUNE 14. China on Friday rebuffed South Korea's demand to return a North Korean seized at a visa office, plunging into its second diplomatic battle in five weeks over a wave of asylum bids at foreign embassies.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman rejected Seoul's accusations that China violated international law on Thursday when police dragged the man away from the South Korean office in Beijing. He also criticised diplomats who were punched and kicked when they tried to intervene.

The stance appeared to reflect a tougher Chinese policy toward asylum bids by North Koreans fleeing famine and oppression, dozens of whom have been allowed to leave for the South in the past three months after seeking refuge at consulates and embassies.

``China will not turn the person over to South Korea,'' said the spokesman, Liu Jianchao. ``The demand is unreasonable.''

Mr. Liu refused to say whether the man would be sent home to North Korea. He had tried five times in the past to enter China and has been repatriated twice, Mr. Liu said. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the man, who is in his 50s and surnamed Won, was accompanied by his 15-year-old son. The boy remained in the visa office on Friday, joining 17 other North Korean asylum-seekers already holed up in South Korean diplomatic offices.

In another sign of China's harder line on asylum bids, the Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that it had issued a notice to embassies demanding that they turn asylum-seekers over to police.

Thursday's incident erupted just weeks after China and Japan resolved a diplomatic furore over the seizure of a five-member North Korean family at a Japanese consulate. They were allowed to leave for South Korea via the Philippines.

No progress was reported in talks on the fate of two North Koreans still at the Canadian embassy where they sought refuge on June 8.

Mr. Liu suggested that South Korea was to blame for Thursday's incident, saying Seoul had asked China to stop such asylum bids after a North Korean man sought refuge at its embassy on May 23.

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