North Korea detains two US journalists

North Korea detains two US journalists
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Christian Oliver in Seoul
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: March 19 2009 13:56 | Last updated: March 19 2009 16:39
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/59e0e534-148a-11de-8cd1-0000779fd2ac.html


North Korea has detained two US citizens who entered the country without permission, adding another level of tension to a relationship that is already strained as Pyongyang prepares to launch a long-range missile.

North Korean border guards detained the US citizens - Laura Ling and Euna Lee – on Tuesday after they crossed the Tumen river, the border between China and North Korea.

Ms Ling, a Chinese-American, and Ms Lee, a Korean-American, were working on a documentary for Current TV, a San Francisco-based internet channel founded by Al Gore, the former US vice-president.

A senior US official said North Korean border guards had taken the journalists “into custody on the Tumen river”. A person familiar with the situation said the women reportedly crossed the frozen river and spend time on North Korean soil. North Korean border guards later chased, and detained, the reporters as they attempted to cross back into China.

The senior official confirmed that the US government “believed” that the women had entered North Korea but was trying to clarify the exact details of what happened.

The US government is also examining the possibility that the North Korean guards may have apprehended the women on the Chinese side of the river. China and North Korea both claim the river itself as their territory.

“We’re working with Chinese government officials in the area to ascertain their whereabouts and welfare,” said the US official. “We also have been in touch with North Korean authorities, through our protective power-the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, to express our concern about this situation.”

While the US government is portraying the episode as an accidental incursion, the incident could provide a major headache for President Barack Obama if not resolved quickly.

As a senator, Mr Obama was a critic of North Korea’s abduction of Reverend Kim Dong-Shik, a South Korean permanent resident of the US who was captured in Northeast China in 2000. He has also called on North Korea to resolve questions about Japanese citizens who were abducted from Japan by North Korean agents over a number of decades.

In a statement last October, Mr Obama wrote: “North Korea must also resolve all questions about the abduction of Japanese and South Korean citizens, and of the Reverend Kim Dong-Shik. I urge the Bush Administration to continue to use our diplomatic and economic leverage to press North Korea to cooperate fully with Tokyo, Seoul and Washington on these matters.”

The North Korean detention of the journalists is not the first case of its kind. The most sensational incident occurred in 1968, when North Korea seized the naval vessel USS Pueblo. Since then, North Korea detained a US helicopter pilot in 1994 and a US citizen who swam the river Yalu on the Chinese border in 1996.

The seizure of the reporters puts added pressure on already tense relations between Washington and Pyongyang. It further dampens hopes that the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme can be revived soon.

Pyongyang has also unsettled regional security by saying it will launch a satellite into orbit between April 4 and 8. The US argues this is an excuse for test-firing a Taepodong-2 long-range missile, which technically has the range to reach Alaska, and possibly further into the US.