South Korea wants North Korea to cooperate in what would be an unprecedented joint investigation into the recent fatal shooting of a South Korean fisheries official.
Outrage mounted in South Korea after its military said Thursday that North Korean soldiers had killed the man, then soaked his body in fuel and lit it on fire near the sea border. North Korean officials said only that soldiers shot the “illegal intruder,” Reuters reported Saturday.
South Korean officials said a joint probe was needed because there were discrepancies in accounts of the death from the two sides.
The fisheries official was reported missing while at work on a boat close to South Korea’s sea border.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare apology Friday over the man’s death. In a letter from Kim to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the portly despot wrote that he was “very sorry” over what had transpired.
South Korea’s military said the man was apparently attempting to defect to the North, but his brother disputed the claims, saying that he must have had an accident.
North Koreans said that the man was from South Korea. The dictator claimed that the 47-year-old man did not comply with one soldier’s demand that he identify himself — resulting in about 10 rounds being fired.
The two Koreas have never jointly investigated past accidents —which include the death of a South Korean tourist shot at the North’s mountain resort of Kumgang in 2008 or the North’s bombing of Yeonpyeong Island which killed four South Koreans in 2010.