Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said Friday that four North Koreans who have expressed their intent to defect did so of their own volition.

The four belonged to a group of 31 North Koreans who crossed the inter-Korean maritime border in early February in a wooden fishing vessel. Among the 31, four have expressed their intentions to defect.

Hyun also dismissed Pyongyang’s claims that the South is holding the North Koreans against their will and that Seoul is pressing the North Koreans to defect through deception and threats.