SEOUL, July 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's media on Friday ramped up their calls for South Korea to repatriate its restaurant workers who defected here years ago, saying that any delay in resolving the issue could negatively affect inter-Korean relations. 
 
 Twelve North Korean women had been working at a restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo and came to the South in April 2016. The group defection has been causing controversy amid claims that some of them were duped into coming to the South. 
 
 "If our female citizens' repatriation issue is not resolved as quickly as possible, it could serve as an obstacle not just to the planned reunions of separated families between the two Koreas but also to the overall inter-Korean relations," said Uriminzokkiri, the North's external propaganda website. 
 
 The website claimed that those workers were coerced into the South and sending them back would be a "touchstone" by which the Seoul government's commitment to carrying out the April inter-Korean summit agreement can be tested. 
 
 "We will closely watch what action the South Korean government will take," it said. 
 
 Meari, another North Korean propaganda website, also claimed that the North Korean workers were "kidnapped," saying that a failure in resolving the issue could hamper inter-Korean relations, including the planned family reunion event. 
 
 Controversy flared up over those workers in May when a local cable broadcaster aired an interview with a restaurant manager who said he tricked them into defecting and that South Korea's spy agency was involved in the process. 
 
 The Seoul government has claimed that the North Korean women defected to the South of their own will. The North has demanded their immediate return. 
 
 South and North Korea are currently preparing to hold reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North's east coast next month, an event in line with the agreement their leaders reached in a historic summit in April. 
 
 kokobj@yna.co.kr 
 
 (END) ||||| Seoul, South Korea (CNN) The leaders of North and South Korea will hold a summit in Pyongyang in September, both countries announced Monday. 
 
 It will be the third in-person meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two first met in April, pledging to forge closer relations and work to formally end the Korean War in an agreement called the Panmunjom Declaration 
 
 They then held an impromptu meeting in May at the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas. 
 
 Representatives from the two Koreas announced the September meeting after a round of high-level talks between officials from Pyongyang and Seoul at the DMZ Monday. 
 
 Ri Son Gwon, North Korea's point man for inter-Korean relations, told reporters that the date has been set, but would not confirm exactly when in September the meeting would be held. 
 
 "What's very important is that both governments do all they ought to do regarding progressing all the issues on the agenda," Ri said. 
 
 "If the issues that were raised in the inter-Korea talks and individual meetings are not resolved, then unexpected problems could arise and all the items on the agenda could meet obstacles." 
 
 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in (right) pose for photographs after signing the Panmunjom Declaration. 
 
 However, Cho Myoung-gyon -- Ri's South Korean counterpart -- appeared to dispute that both sides have settled on a specific date, telling reporters that "it needs to be discussed further." 
 
 Kim Eui-keum, a spokesman for Moon, said that holding the summit before September 10 would be difficult due to logistics. 
 
 When he does go, Moon will be the third South Korean president to travel to the North Korean capital, and the first in more than a decade. 
 
 South Korean President Kim Dae-jung met Kim Jong Un's father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang in 2000 for the first inter-Korean summit. Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun also met Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in 2007. 
 
 The Winter Olympics thaw 
 
 Moon has long been an advocate for greater engagement with North Korea, dating back to his days as a key presidential aide in the 2000s. 
 
 He is credited with using this year's Winter Olympics to help warm relations between Pyongyang and the rest of the world after a tense 2017 marked by North Korea's repeated weapons tests. 
 
 The detente paved the way for the April inter-Korean summit and US President Donald Trump's meeting with Kim in Singapore in June -- the first ever between sitting leaders of North Korea and the United States. 
 
 Kim and Trump both agreed to "build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula," while the North Korean leader "reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." 
 
 Trump and Kim during their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island on June 12 in Singapore. 
 
 Critics of the agreement argued the Trump administration failed to get Kim to agree to specific action. 
 
 Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have preached patience since then, arguing that complex nuclear negotiations take time. Pompeo has been quick to note North Korea has not tested any weapons since November, when it fired a long-range ballistic missile experts believe could be capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead. 
 
 But the two sides appear to have hit an impasse. 
 
 Senior diplomatic sources told CNN last week that Pyongyang has continually rejected Washington's proposals on denuclearization, calling them "gangster-like." 
 
 Cho, the South Korean reunification minister, said North and South Korea discussed denuclearization in general terms during their talks Monday. 
 
 "We explained that we need to help North Korea-US talks progress quickly and that there needs to be an establishment of dynamic where the inter-Korean relationship and the North Korea-US relationship improves in cycles," he said.
– What was unprecedented in April is now becoming ... routine? The leaders of North and South Korea will meet again sometime in September, their third such meeting in five months, reports CNN. This time, however, the South's Moon Jae-in will travel to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un. High-level officials from the two nations announced the meeting after talks in the Demilitarized Zone on Monday. No agenda has been released, but the two sides have been discussing everything from a possible peace declaration to economic projects, notes Reuters. One potential sore spot: The plight of 12 North Korean women now in South Korea as restaurant workers. The North claims they were kidnapped—or perhaps tricked into defecting—and must be returned, while the South maintains they defected of their own accord in 2016 through China, per Yonhap News. "If our female citizens' repatriation issue is not resolved as quickly as possible, it could serve as an obstacle not just to the planned reunions of separated families between the two Koreas but also to the overall inter-Korean relations," said Uriminzokkiri, a propaganda website for the North, last month. South Korean officials declined to say if the issue came up in Monday's talks.