This is an unpardonable infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and the right of its citizens and another hideous provocation against it.

As the puppet group did not repatriate all of them, rubbing salt into wound of their family members, they fell into swoon while demanding a face-to-face meeting with their family members at Panmunjom.

In the past the DPRK sent back all south Korean fishermen and ships drifted toward its territorial waters, whatever the reason may be. In particular, it persuaded south Koreans eager to live in it to go back south Korea, an expression of noble humanitarianism and compatriotism.

Such hostile act against crewmen of a drifting ship was not unexpectedly committed by a few individual military gangsters but under tacit support of the puppet authorities.

In the past period the puppet group frequently detained DPRK residents, conducting illegal and forcible "defection" campaigns.

It has formed a "joint investigation team" with the Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Unification, the military and police involved and worked hard to force DPRK residents drifted due to unexpected accidents to "defect" through persistent threat, appeasement and deception in bid to use them as hostages for anti-DPRK smear campaign.

The detaining of DPRK residents by the puppet group this time is an extension of its heinous confrontation racket against the DPRK.

It is unhesitatingly kicking off deliberate and premeditated provocation to tarnish the image of the DPRK and drive the inter-Korean relations into more catastrophic phase.

The puppet group should stop at once the anti-DPRK racket precipitating its ruin and immediately and unconditionally send back DPRK residents detained unreasonably.