Only a month after the Korean-American missionary Robert Park‘s voluntary entry into N.Korea, another American seems to have been detained.
(AP) North Korea said today that it has detained an American man for trespassing on its border with China, the second arrest of a U.S. citizen by the communist regime in the past several weeks. The man was detained Monday and is under investigation, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said. He was not identified by name, and the report provided no further details. The U.S. embassies in Beijing and Seoul had no comment.
North Korea said last month it was holding another U.S. citizen for “illegally entering” the country. Relatives said it was missionary Robert Park.
UPDATE: North Korea has so far provided no details about the detainee, and for two days the State Department said it could not confirm the second detention on Wednesday.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the North Koreans, in a bare-bones message through their representative at U.N. headquarters in New York, provided no identifying information about the detainee, including the name or gender, or details of the alleged offense.
Crowley said the North Koreans told the U.S. on Thursday that the latest arrest was of an American who had crossed illegally in North Korea from China. “There is no higher priority than the welfare of our citizens anywhere in the world,” the spokesman said.
Crowley said the U.S. is seeking through Swedish government intermediaries to gain access to the detainee to verify the person’s condition and details of the incident. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang represents U.S. interests there; Washington has no diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
The spokesman said he had no idea why the North Koreans provided so little information about the latest case.
“You continue to try to get me to explain what’s happening in North Korea, and I can’t,” Crowley told reporters.
