S. Korea to respect free will of N. Korean defectors in Japan

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Thursday that it will respect the free will of nine North Korean defectors who were found adrift aboard a boat off Japan's west coast earlier this week as Tokyo is considering sending them to Seoul. "The government plans to handle the issue from the perspective of humanitarianism and respecting the free will of the defectors," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said. Japan has officially notified South Korea that the North Korean defectors want to reach Seoul, Cho said. Earlier in the day, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported, citing officials it didn't identify, that South Korean officials will meet with the North Koreans to directly confirm their wish to be transferred to Seoul. However, Cho declined to confirm the report. The nine North Koreans, including three children, have been questioned by Japanese authorities since Tuesday, when their small wooden boat was towed to Kanazawa, a port city on Japan's west coast, in a rare defection from the North to Japan. They are currently staying at a government immigration facility in Nagasaki Prefecture. Japanese officials have said that they will handle the situation, based on similar cases in the past. In June 2007, Japan sent a family of four North Korean defectors to South Korea upon their request, two weeks after they arrived by boat in Aomori, a prefecture on the northern tip of Honshu.