The U.N. Command says an American national has crossed the border from South Korea into North Korea.
There were no immediate details about how or why the soldier crossed the heavily fortified border or whether the soldier was on duty. The four officials spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of a public announcement.
It said that he is currently in North Korean custody and that the U.N. Command is working with its North Korean counterparts to resolve the incident.Panmunjom, located inside the 248-kilometer-long Demilitarized Zone, is jointly overseen by the U.N. Command and North Korea since its creation at the close of the Korean War. Bloodshed and gunfire have occasionally occurred there, but it has also been a venue for numerous talks and a popular tourist spot.
In November 2017, North Korean soldiers fired 40 rounds as one of their colleagues raced toward freedom. The soldier was hit five times before he was found beneath a pile of leaves on the southern side of Panmunjom. He survived and is now in South Korea. There have been a small number of U.S. soldiers who fled to North Korea during the Cold War, including Charles Jenkins, who deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965 and fled across the DMZ. He appeared in North Korean propaganda films and married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted by North Korean agents. He died in Japan in 2017.
The releases came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was engaged in nuclear diplomacy with then-President Donald Trump but the high-stakes diplomacy collapsed in 2019 amid wrangling over U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea.
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