February 26, 2025
SEOUL – After refraining from taking a stance for the past week, the Democratic Party of Korea said Tuesday it agrees that North Korean soldiers captured as prisoners of war in Ukraine should be accepted as defectors under the laws protecting displaced North Koreans.
“Our party is not opposed to the defection of North Korean soldiers to South Korea,” Rep. Jin Sung-joon, the Democratic Party’s policy committee chair, said Tuesday.
But Jin cautioned against “staging a political show” out of the North Korean soldiers’ defection to avoid provoking a reaction from Russia or North Korea.
“The ruling party should remember some things are better done quietly, and not use the prisoners of war for domestic politics,” he said.
Tuesday’s statement from the Democratic Party comes after the People Power Party on Monday introduced a resolution calling for humanitarian protection of North Korean soldiers who are being held captive.
Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon, the former People Power Party leader who authored the resolution, said in a statement that as a responsible South Korean political party “(they) cannot remain silent in the face of human rights abuses suffered by the North Korean soldiers in captivity,” urging joint efforts from the Democratic Party.
“These are men who were dragged to fight in a war, and narrowly survived,” Kim said, pointing out that the North Korean soldiers possess the same rights as South Korean citizens under the Constitution.
Monday’s resolution was signed by 22 lawmakers of the People Power Party, including Rep. Park Choong-kwon, a graduate of Kim Jong-un National Defense University in Pyongyang who defected to Seoul in 2009. Rep. Kim Ki-woon, a former vice minister of inter-Korean affairs, and Rep. Kim Gunn, a former nuclear envoy, also joined the resolution.
The People Power Party has been vocal about supporting the two North Korean captives who have reportedly conveyed their wish to defect to South Korea, with Rep. Kwon Young-se, the party’s chair, saying the South Korean government should take measures to aid their defection.
Rep. Sung Il-jong, the chair of the National Assembly’s national defense committee, said Tuesday that the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other agencies in charge “must do everything possible” to give the North Korean captives a chance at life in South Korea.
“Please do everything in your power to ensure that North Korean troops in Ukraine, abandoned by Kim Jong-un, are welcomed in the free land of South Korea,” Sung said in a statement Tuesday.
“If they are forcibly returned to North Korea, after having told the outside world they want to go to a third country, they will likely face torture or hard labor in prison camps,” he said.