North Korea demands South Korea send back restaurant workers

North Korea is demanding that South Korea send back 12 North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016, saying such a move would demonstrate Seoul's willingness to improve relations.

The North's statement on Saturday came a week after Seoul said it would look more closely into the circumstances surrounding the women's arrival following a media report that suggested some of them might have been brought to the South against their will.

Earlier in the week, North Korea canceled a high-level meeting with the South over U.S.-South Korean military exercises and threatened to call off a planned summit between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and President Donald Trump.

The cancellation cooled what had been an unusual flurry of diplomatic moves from Pyongyang.