SEOUL, June 15 (UPI) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye has maintained the same "policy of confrontation" as her predecessor, North Korea said Saturday.
Rodong Sinmun, the largest newspaper in the north, made the charge on the 13th anniversary of a summit agreement for greater cooperation between the two Koreas, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported.
President Lee Myung-bak, who was in office from 2008 until Park took over earlier this year, had a harder position on North Korea, which effectively ended the agreement.
Also Saturday, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se held a meeting in Singapore with the country's mission chiefs in Southeast Asia to discuss aid to North Korean defectors. Some North Koreans use Laos and other southeast Asian countries as routes to South Korea, and nine young defectors were recently returned to North Korea after being arrested in Laos.
About 25,000 North Koreans have made their way to the south since the armistice that ended the Korean War. Most have done so by way of third countries instead of by crossing the heavily fortified border.
