A former South Korean government provided support to a secret network of civilians working to rescue South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) in North Korea, a journalist-turned-scholar here said Tuesday.

"I believe the network is still running," Melanie Kirkpatrick, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., said in an interview.

The former veteran journalist was introducing her new book, titled "Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad."

The 350-page book is based on her interviews with more than 200 people, including North Korean defectors and human rights activists in South Korea and China.

The mission of the network was to find the POWs in North Korea, facilitate their escape to China and return them to South Korea, she said.

"The rescues started in the 1990s and were run by South Korean civilians who lived in China. They were secretly supported by members of the government of then-President Kim Young-sam," she said.

Kirkpatrick added when a liberal president, Kim Dae-jung, took office in 1998, the government support dried up apparently as he was not interested in "shining any sunlight" on North Korea's horrific treatment of South Korean POWs.

Although the POW-rescue network is believed to be still alive, she said she was not sure whether the current South Korean administration is helping it.

South Korea estimates about 500 POWs reside in the North. The two sides staged a war from 1950-53.

Pyongyang denies holding any POWs and claims former South Korean soldiers voluntarily defected.

Kirkpatrick also expressed shock over her findings on the market in China for North Korean brides, some of whom she interviewed.

On the new North Korean leadership, she said it is pursuing an "image-first policy."

"I am very skeptical," she said, asked about the possibility that the North's young leader Kim Jong-un will adopt a reform policy.

She stressed that his smiles in front of cameras along with his wife and performances featuring Disney characters are just aimed at public relations.

She recalled a historic trip in 2000 by then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during which she reportedly exchanged email addresses with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

At that time, it was seen as a possible sign of North Korea's opening and Kim's modern style.

"I think the Kim family historically has been very good at public relations," she said.

On her latest book, she said it differentiates itself from other books on North Korean defectors in that it touches mainly on how they had escaped and survived, along with stories on rescuers, rather than their tragic lives in North Korea.

Kirkpatrick worked as a writer for the Wall Street Journal from 1980-2009. She reported lots of articles and editorials on the two Koreas, especially when serving as a correspondent in Tokyo and Hong Kong. (Yonhap News)