SEOUL urged North Korea yesterday to release two of its citizens, Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil, who have been detained over alleged espionage.

South Korea’s government denied the pair had been spying but could not explain how they ended up in the North.

Northern media said they had been detained last year for collecting confidential state information and attempting to spread “bourgeois lifestyle and culture” on the orders of South Korea’s espionage agency and the US.