Six North Korean fishermen, who had been stranded in South Korea for months after drifting into its waters, were allowed to return home with one of their boats on Wednesday, in what appeared to be a good-will gesture to the North from the government of South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung.
The repatriation took place at the countries’ maritime border off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. Since taking office last month, Mr. Lee — whose predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, took a hard line toward the North — has called for dialogue and political reconciliation. Relations had chilled in recent years, with the North cutting off all communication, calling the South its principal enemy and threatening to use nuclear weapons should war break out.
Two of the fishermen were found in a boat off South Korea’s west coast in March, and the four others were in a boat discovered in May off the east coast. In both cases, the fishing crews, all men in their 30s and 40s with families in the North, had drifted into the South’s waters after their engines failed, South Korean officials said.
The inter-Korean border is one of the world’s most heavily guarded. But North Koreans, sometimes entire families, have occasionally fled by boat to seek asylum in the South, and fishermen from the North have accidentally wound up in the South’s waters on numerous occasions. Small, wooden North Korean boats, some so primitive that they used stones for anchors, have also washed up on the coasts of Japan and Russia — most empty, but some with hungry survivors aboard, and others containing human remains.
Generally, when South Korea finds North Korean fishermen adrift in its waters — usually because of engine failure or a lack of navigational equipment — its navy tows them ashore. After extensive debriefing, they are given the choice of returning home or, if they want to defect, staying in the South. These debriefings take time as the South Korean authorities try to establish the fishermen’s motives for defecting, and ensure that they are not spies.
But sending North Koreans back can be a delicate matter. During the Cold War, both Koreas used such repatriations for propaganda purposes. The South would give North Koreans new clothes and other gifts before handing them over across Panmunjom, the sole contact point on the land border. Once they crossed the border, the North Koreans would strip down to their underwear, hurling away the gifts from the capitalist South, as officials from both sides watched.
Repatriating North Koreans can also raise legal issues in South Korea, whose Constitution claims the entire Korean Peninsula as its territory and treats North Koreans as its citizens.
In 2019, two North Korean fishermen fled by boat to the South, where they confessed to having murdered 16 of their shipmates at sea. Earlier this year, four former senior officials in the South were found guilty of having abused their power by sending the men back to North Korea against their will, instead of granting them refugee status or a chance to be tried for their crimes in the South. Rights groups said the men were likely to have been executed in North Korea.
The six fishermen who were found earlier this year were asked repeatedly whether they really wanted to go back to the North, South Korean officials said. But there was another problem: North Korea did not respond to the South’s recent statements that it was willing to send the men home, in keeping with its policy of refusing to engage the South in dialogue.
That left the fishermen stranded in the South for months. Eventually, Mr. Lee’s government decided to act unilaterally.
“If they crossed the border while they were adrift and wanted to return to their hometowns, where they have families and livelihoods, we should let them, out of a humanitarian perspective,” Kang Yu-jung, Mr. Lee’s spokeswoman, told reporters on Monday, conveying the president’s position on the matter.
The South fixed one of the North Koreans’ boats — the other was beyond repair — and let all six men take it to the North on Wednesday morning.
It was not the first gesture from Mr. Lee aimed at improving ties with the North. Last month, his government switched off propaganda loudspeakers that had been broadcasting K-pop songs, news and other content across the border for the past year. The North made no public comment about that, but it reciprocated by turning off its own loudspeakers along the border.
That pattern apparently repeated itself on Wednesday morning, when the North Koreans were returning home.
The South had notified North Korea that it would release the men on Wednesday, communicating through the United Nations Command, which runs a hotline with the North at Panmunjom. The North did not respond. But when the fishermen crossed the maritime border, a North Korean patrol boat was waiting there to escort the boat, the South’s Unification Ministry said in a statement.
“In the end, they returned home smoothly and safely,” it said.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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