The DPRK side, repeatedly urging the repatriation of all its detained inhabitants on March 7, proposed having a north-south Red Cross working contact for confirming through a face-to-face meeting the intentions of the four inhabitants the south Korean authorities claimed expressed their will to "defect to the south, " the notice said, adding:

As regards this proposal, the south side clarified several times its stand that if 27 people are sent back, to begin with, it will be possible to have a north-south working contact to discuss the issue of confirming the intentions of the four people at a face-to-face meeting and allow the north side to directly meet them.

Now that 27 people came back home, the DPRK side proposed the south Korean side to have the inter-Korean Red Cross working contact to discuss and settle at an early date the issue of confirming the intentions of the four people through a face-to-face meeting and repatriating them at the conference room of the former Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission at Panmunjom at 10 a.m. on April 6.