S.Korea Vows to Send Iraq Troops Despite Kidnapping
Sun Jun 20, 2004 09:59 PM ET
(Page 1 of 2)
By Kim Miyoung and Rhee So-eui
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will go ahead with its plan to send 3,000 troops to Iraq despite a televised threat from Iraqi militants to behead a South Korean hostage, the foreign ministry said Monday.
The government would do its best to seek the release of 33-year-old businessman Kim Sun-il, who has been shown repeatedly on South Korean television pleading for his life, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin told reporters after a meeting of President Roh Moo-hyun's National Security Council.
Choi said Kim had been kidnapped in Falluja on June 17 -- the day before South Korea announced where its troops would be deployed in Iraq and two days after he arrived in the country.
The president of Kim's company had initially sought to negotiate with the kidnappers without telling the government, Choi said.
"There is no change in the government principle that the troop deployment is for the reconstruction of Iraq," Choi said. He chairs a special task force set up to handle the crisis.
Arabic television station Al Jazeera broadcast the videotape showing the masked militants standing behind Kim as they made their threat. South Korean television stations broadcast the film repeatedly.
South Korea's YTN television quoted Kim's family as saying he had called, sobbing, from Iraq. He is the seventh of eight children.
Yonhap news agency said Kim worked for a trading firm, Gana General Trading, and went to Iraq on June 15. The company had 12 employees in Iraq and has supplied military equipment to U.S. troops in Baghdad, the agency said.
South Koreans reacted with shock, particularly because of the footage of Kim imploring people to help to free him. But most said Seoul should not alter its decision to send troops.
"I felt terribly chilled this morning watching the Korean crying and yelling in front of the terrorists' camera. I am so sorry for his family. But feeling sorry and national security should be considered separately," said Sung Jeong-hun, a 29-year-old graduate school student in Seoul.
"If we accept the terrorists' demand this time, the terrorists will continue threatening the world with the horrible terrors," he said. Continued ...
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