US Soldier Crosses North Korean Side of Panmunjom, Officials Say

US officials have confirmed Tuesday (July 18) a serviceman from the US Army has crossed the border into North Korea via the Panmunjom border village separating North and South Korea. The soldier was the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program.

They did not provide any other details about why or how the soldier crossed the border or whether the soldier was on duty.

Four US officials familiar with the matter told reporters on the condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement.

Deliberate Crossings

Earlier, the American-led United Nations (UN) Command stated the detained US national was on a tour of Panmunjom when he crossed the border "willfully and without authorization."

While more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to the South to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the Korean War, cases of Americans and South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare

Despite this, the few American soldiers who crossed the border defected to the North Koreans. Foremost of which is Charles Jenkins, who in 1965, deserted his post and crossed the 248-kilometer-long (154-mile-long) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He eventually married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted from Japan by North Korean agents. He died in Japan in 2017.

However, in recent years, some American civilians were also arrested in North Korea after allegedly entering the country from its border with China.

High Tensions

The village of Panmunjom was created by both Koreas at the end of armed hostilities in the peninsula in 1953. Over the decades after the Korean War, there were multiple incidents of border crossings by defectors and clashes between border guards, most of which happened in or around the village.

The most famous incident at Panmunjom happened in August 1976 when two American army officers tasked to trim a 12-meter (40-foot) tree obstructing the view from a checkpoint were killed by ax-wielding North Koreans.

The incident forced Washington to fly nuclear-capable B-52 bombers toward the DMZ to intimidate authorities in Pyongyang. A similar flyby also happened last month in response to anti-US rallies in the North Korean capital to commemorate the start of the Korean War.

Technically, both North and South Korea are still in a state of war after both nations signed an armistice at Panmunjom to end the Korean War. As a result, the US still stationed about 28,000 troops in South Korea.

This is a developing story. Please follow HNGN for more updates.