[06/سبتمبر/2010]

TOKYO, Sept 6 (Saba) -- North Korea said Monday it will release the South Korean fishing boat and its crew after the North's navy seized them last month, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The decision to release the squid fishing boat and its seven crew, including three Chinese, has been made "from the compatriotic and humanitarian points of view," the KCNA said. The North's navy detained the Daeseung 55 on August 8 off the east coast of the divided peninsula for the illegal entry to the North's waters in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), calling it "an intolerable infringement upon the sovereignty" of North Korea.

The crew of the 55 Daesung will be sent back to South Korea "taking into consideration the fact that they admitted the seriousness of their act" and promised they woud not "repeat such act," said the KCNA. The South has repeatedly urged the North to release it, sending messages in the name of the Red Cross, which is Seoul's main channel on humanitarian issues involving North Korea, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency said.

"It is fortunate" that the North decided to release the boat, Chun Hae-sung, spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry, told reporters on Monday, according to Yonhap. The ministry said in a statement that the North has notified the South that it will hand over the boat on Tuesday at the maritime border in the East Sea. The decision to release the boat came ahead of the North's largest political meeting in 30 years. It also came about a week after the South's Red Cross offered to send KRW 10 billion (USD 8.4 million) in flood aid to help the North recover from heavy flooding that ravaged parts of the country last month.

South and North Korea remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.

Saba