Deal reached on N. Korean asylum seekers

A group claiming to have aided the asylum bid say the North Koreans spent two days evading police before they entered the compound

BEIJING, China -- Chinese and German officials say they have reached a deal on the problem of 15 North Korean asylum seekers holed up in a German diplomatic compound in Beijing.

However no details of the agreement have yet been released.

The group scaled the wall of the compound Tuesday and based themselves inside a German-run school.

Since then officials from the German embassy have been in contact with the Chinese foreign ministry in an effort to resolve their fate.

Over the past 12 months about 80 other North Koreans have been granted permission to leave China for South Korea via a third country.

Many have made their escape bids by rushing past security guards into diplomatic missions and asking for asylum.

The agreement on the fate of the latest asylum seekers was announced Thursday afternoon by Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan.

'Consensus'

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"China and Germany have reached consensus on the proper settlement of the issue and it is being implemented," he told a news conference giving no other details.

The German embassy has not made any comment on the agreement either.

On Wednesday a German refugee activist emailed Beijing-based journalists, saying the 15 North Koreans had spent two nights on the streets of Beijing and dodged police before getting inside the German compound.

Meanwhile, a diplomatic source at the South Korean embassy told CNN that "a few" North Korean asylum seekers were holed up in that embassy as well.

Other reports said some 20 individuals were waiting in the South Korean embassy and preparing to leave, likely to the Philippines and then onward to Seoul.

The time of their departure and destination could not be independently confirmed.

Illegal migrants

The group stormed past security guards before entering a German-run school inside the embassy compound

Beijing officially regards North Korean asylum seekers as illegal economic migrants and is bound by a treaty with Pyongyang to return them.

However, faced with international condemnation if it hands them back to North Korea, Beijing has adopted a quiet, unofficial policy of letting them exit China.

While there is no sign that Beijing's official policy is about to change, officials have recently emphasized the humanitarian needs of the refugees.

At the same time Beijing has accused foreign activists and religious groups operating underground inside China of helping the North Koreans to break Chinese law.

One such activist, a German named Norbert Vollertsen, has for the past several months dedicated himself to helping organize mass asylum bids through embassies in Beijing.

'Terror regime'

On Wednesday he told CNN that the reason he was taking this action was to bring down the communist leadership in North Korea.

He said North Korea was "a huge concentration camp" and labeled the North Korean government "a terror regime."

Meanwhile Chinese police have blanketed Beijing's embassy districts on the lookout for more defectors.

There have been several incidents of Chinese security agents tackling and detaining North Koreans who fail to reach the safety of diplomatic missions.

Some 12 North Koreans scrambled over the walls of another diplomatic compound Monday and were tackled and detained by Chinese police as they tried to reach the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Chinese agents dragged several of the North Koreans away and roughed up foreign journalists covering the event.