New Unification Minister Lee In-young has said Seoul is willing to work with Pyongyang to prevent a coronavirus outbreak in the border city of Kaesong or anywhere else in North Korea.
During a visit to the National Cemetery in Seoul on Thursday, Lee said South Korea takes quarantine measures in and around Kaesong seriously and is closely watching the situation.
He also expressed concern over the health of the North Korean people.
Over the weekend, the North said it declared a state of emergency and sealed off Kaesong, claiming a "runaway" defector suspected of having COVID-19 recently came back from the South.
Seoul later threw doubt on those claims, saying the defector was never registered as a COVID-19 patient, nor classified as a person who came in contact with virus patients.
<Photo: Yonhap News>
