1 of 2 | South Korean Kim Kuk-gi speaking during a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that North Korea has detained South Koreans Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil on espionage charges. An unnamed official at the North's Ministry of State Security branded them as 'spies' of the South's National Intelligence Service and 'heinous terrorists'. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
June 10 (Asia Today) -- Senior U.S. human rights officials visiting South Korea met over two days with families of South Koreans detained or abducted by North Korea, civic groups said Wednesday.
The meetings included families of South Korean missionaries detained in North Korea, wartime and postwar abductees and prisoners of war who were not repatriated after the Korean War.
Riley M. Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, met Tuesday with Choi Jin-young, the son of South Korean missionary Choi Chun-gil, who is being held in North Korea, according to civic groups.
Julie Turner, acting deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and Belsis Romero, a White House faith liaison, also took part in the visit.
