NK weekly-inter-Korean news

Summary of inter-Korean news this week

SEOUL, May 17 (Yonhap) -- The following is a summary of inter-Korean news this week.

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Artwork symbolizing S. Korean abductees in N. Korea on display at garden show

SEOUL -- The unification ministry on Thursday unveiled an artwork inspired by three forget-me-nots at a garden show in an effort to raise public awareness of South Koreans detained in North Korea.

Earlier this year, the government created an image of three blue forget-me-nots as a symbol of South Korean abductees, detainees and prisoners of the 1950-53 Korean War in hope of their safe repatriation from the repressive regime.

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(LEAD) N. Korea denounces S. Korean top diplomat's visit to China as 'begging diplomacy'

SEOUL -- North Korea on Thursday slammed South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul's visit to China earlier this week, deriding his call for Beijing to play a constructive role for peace on the Korean Peninsula as "begging diplomacy," state media reported.

Pak Myong Ho, vice minister for Chinese affairs at the North's foreign ministry, issued the criticism over Cho's remarks made during his talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

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(LEAD) N. Korean defectors send balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets to North

INCHEON/SEOUL -- A North Korean defectors' group has sent about 20 large plastic balloons carrying propaganda leaflets against the North Korean regime across the border into the North, the group's chief said Monday.

Containing 300,000 flyers criticizing the regime and 2,000 USB sticks loaded with K-pop content, the balloons were launched from Ganghwa Island near the western inter-Korean border late Friday, Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), said.

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NIS looking into N. Korea's suspected provision of weapons to Russia

SEOUL -- South Korea's spy agency said Sunday it is looking into suspicions that North Korean weapons made in the 1970s have been supplied to Russia for its war in Ukraine amid deepening military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

The remark by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) came in response to a recent report by a local media outlet that 122 mm artillery shells manufactured in the North in the 1970s appeared to be among weapons that Russia used in its ongoing war against Kyiv.

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