The dispute is the latest episode in a year of high tensions and comes as US and South Korean troops stage major military exercises that the North has branded a rehearsal for invasion.

The 31 North Koreans were travelling on a fishing boat which drifted across the Yellow Sea border in thick fog on February 5.

After almost a month the South said it would hand over 27 but announced that two men and two women would be allowed to stay as they had requested.

In a message late Friday the North demanded the unconditional repatriation of all 31, according to Seoul's unification ministry, whose officials had been waiting at the frontier village of Panmunjom to hand over the 27.

"Our side will try to contact North Korea again next week, probably on Monday," said a ministry spokesman.

The communist state late Thursday accused the South of "despicable unethical acts" and said the group on the boat had been held hostage since February 5 in a bid to fuel cross-border confrontation.

The North said all those on board the boat had demanded they be sent home but Seoul had pressured them to remain in the South "by appeasement, deception and threat", it added.

"This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation to the DPRK (North Korea)," said a statement attributed to the North's Red Cross.

In another statement Friday also attributed to the Red Cross, the North said the repatriation of all 31 is "related to the North-South relations" rather than a humanitarian issue.

"If the south side does not comply with this just demand of the DPRK, it will be held wholly accountable for the consequences arising therefrom," it added.

Seoul's Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek told parliament the four had not been forced to stay. "We made a decision after respecting their free will," he said.

The four include the 38-year-old boat captain, who apparently feared punishment if sent back and decided to stay when he saw how different life in the South is, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

Relations have been icy since the South accused the North of torpedoing a warship in March 2010 near the disputed Yellow Sea border with the loss of 46 lives. Pyongyang denies the charge.

In November the North shelled a South Korean island near the border, killing two marines and two civilians.

President Lee Myung-Bak stressed the need for separate branches of the military to work together to counter the threat from the North's special warfare forces, which Seoul says number 200,000.

"Through reckless military provocations, they (the North) are continuing to threaten peace," he told a multi-service officer commissioning ceremony at Gyeryongdae, 160 km (100 miles) south of Seoul.

The North is trying to shore up the position of Kim Jong-Un, youngest son of leader Kim Jong-Il, as eventual successor to his father. It also appears unnerved by pro-democracy protests sweeping the Arab world, analysts say.

Pyongyang has stepped up a clampdown on outside information to block news of the protests and to prevent disturbances among its own people, Won Sei-Hoon, the South's spy agency chief, told legislators.

A Seoul-based defector group says it will float leaflets and video footage with news of the Arab protests into North Korea next week, despite Pyongyang's threat to open fire on launch sites for the leaflets.

Activists protested in central Seoul against the threat, defacing and burning portraits of the Kims. "Shoot if you dare to. We will keep on launching leaflets," a banner read.

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