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SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- A North Korean couple who took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Beijing have arrived in South Korea, bringing to an end their six-day journey of defection.
The North Koreans, who first sought refuge at the embassy early Saturday, took an overnight Korean Air flight from Singapore to Seoul's Inchon International Airport, arriving at dawn on Friday.
Reuters reports they were whisked through customs out of view of several dozen reporters.
The married couple's arrival, confirmed by Korean Air officials, brings to 33 the number of North Koreans to reach the South via third countries.
Canadian officials would not disclose how the two North Koreans managed to elude security and enter the diplomatic compound in what was one of a string of dramatic copycat defections.
As the pair's asylum bid ends successfully, China and Japan continue to wrestle with a diplomatic deadlock over five other North Koreans dragged from a Japanese consulate by Chinese police.
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The Asian neighbours have denied reports of a breakthrough in negotiations on the fate of the five, with Tokyo demanding an apology and the return of the North Koreans and China insisting its police were invited into the consulate in the northeastern city of Shenyang last week.
The incident, captured on videotape and played up prominently overseas, outraged the Japanese government and public, and upset Sino-Japanese ties.
Tokyo said that China was violating international law by going into the compound without permission, and asked Beijing to hand over the North Koreans and to apologize for the intrusion.
But Beijing officials were far from apologetic. They said the guards acted with consent from Japanese consular officers and were merely trying to protect them from "unknown intruders".
Japanese officials rejected the Chinese version, insisting that the police did not receive consent to enter or take away the asylum seekers.
'No consensus'
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said earlier in the week that reports from Tokyo that both nations had agreed to allow the North Koreans to go to a third country were untrue.
"There is absolutely no such consensus," China's government-run Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan as saying.
The refugees remain in Chinese custody.
Japan's Foreign Ministry would not comment on the reports.
But news agencies reported that both countries had agreed to look for a quick resolution.
The spokesman said the Japanese should respect the Chinese investigation under way into the incident, which China will resolve based on international laws.
Blended in
In Beijing, several consulates have become targets of asylum seekers, prompting police to double up guards, heighten patrol and throw up barbed wire fences around them.
The Philippines said on Thursday it was willing for North Koreans seeking asylum in third countries to travel via Manila, but added that there were no discussions at present about taking in the five defectors currently being held in Chinese custody.
Many of the North Koreans who have previously sought refuge in diplomatic missions in China have travelled to South Korea via Manila.
International aid organizations estimate that over 100,000 North Koreans have crossed into China in recent years to escape chronic famine and political repression.
Some of them have gone back and forth to secure food or cash and help out their families. Others have disappeared into the Korean community.
Still others have been hiding as fugitives. Beijing insists these Koreans are "economic migrants", not refugees. China has mostly looked the other way.
The flurry of asylum seekers has put China in a tough spot. The Chinese do not want to be portrayed as inhumane toward the North Korean refugees, but they also do not wish to embarrass or offend their North Korean allies.
Most of all, they fear that a trickle of asylum seekers now could build up into a raging flood later.
More than two dozen asylum seekers have succeeded in making the bid for freedom after slipping into the consulates in China over the past two months.
-- CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime Florcruz and CNN Producer Steven Jiang contributed to this report.
