‘Very sorry’
Kim issues rare apology for killing of South Korean
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un yesterday apologised for the shooting death of a South Korean man to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the South's national security adviser said, as public and political outrage over the killing grew.
Apologies from the North -- let alone attributed to Kim personally -- are extremely unusual, and the message comes with inter-Korean ties in deep freeze as well as a stand-off in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.
The apology came in a letter from the North's United Front Department, which handles cross-border ties, to South Korean President Moon Jae-in a day after South Korean officials said the North's soldiers killed the man, doused his body in fuel and set it on fire.
The shooting of the man, a fisheries official who had gone missing this week, shocked South Koreans and sparked a barrage of criticism from the opposition and the public, prompting an unusually tough response from Moon, who called it "unpardonable".