S. Korea Regrets Treatment of Americans With Kim

The government of South Korea has expressed regret over the rough treatment by its security agents of 22 U.S. citizens who accompanied opposition leader Kim Dae Jung on his return to Seoul from exile earlier this month, the State Department announced Thursday.

“We have accepted these expressions of regret and consider the matter closed,” a department spokesman, Edward Djerejian told reporters. He said the South Korean government officially responded Thursday after earlier “informal expressions of regret.”

A melee ensued at Kimpo Airport when Kim--who had been in self-imposed exile in the United States for two years--returned to Seoul on Feb. 8. Security agents forcibly separated the opposition leader and his wife from their largely American entourage, and the State Department later accused South Korea of having broken an agreement to assure that Kim’s homecoming went smoothly.

South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Won Kyung said that “this unfortunate incident . . . should never happen again,” according to Djerejian. The foreign minister “also expressed regret that the original plan for the embassy personnel’s access to the exit ramp was changed,” he said.

According to the U.S.-Korean agreement, a Foreign Ministry official was to have boarded Kim’s plane in Tokyo to explain arrival procedures in Seoul, where U.S. Embassy staff members were to meet the group. But the official did not appear, and the embassy staff members were barred from the tarmac.

Reps. Edward F. Feighan (D-Ohio) and Thomas M. Foglietta (D-Pa.), members of the U.S. delegation, issued statements of satisfaction Thursday over the Korean apology. An aide to Foglietta said the congressman “hopes that Mr. Kim will be able to join the political process and be free to travel.”

Former Assistant Secretary of State Patricia Derian, a member of the entourage who was the Carter Administration’s top human rights official, attributed the apology to the fact that pictures of the airport scuffle were taken by American photographers on Kim’s plane.