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South Korean and American soldiers stand guard at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom in October 2022. (AFP/Yonhap)

A US national who was visiting the Joint Security Area (JSA) on an orientation tour crossed over the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) to the North Korean side.

The person in question was reportedly a member of the US military.

In a message posted to its official Twitter account on Tuesday, the UN Command wrote, “A U.S. National on a JSA orientation tour crossed, without authorization, the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).”

“We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA counterparts to resolve this incident,” it continued. KPA refers to the Korean People’s Army, North Korea’s military force.

Foreign news outlets including the Associated Press and the Agence France-Presse quoted US officials as saying the individual was a US soldier who crossed over to the North during an orientation tour of the JSA that day. No details were reported on the reason for him crossing the border.

The US’ CBS news network reported that the soldier was recently scheduled to fly to the US but had not boarded his flight.

The US appears likely to take active steps to repatriate the soldier — which has observers wondering whether the situation can create some room for North Korea-US dialogue.

In past cases involving the repatriation of US missionaries and journalists detailed in the North, the two sides have held back-channel dialogue before the release.

Three Korean Americans were freed from detention in North Korea ahead of a North Korea-US summit during the Donald Trump presidency in 2018. In another case, relations between the two sides were strained when Otto Warmbier, a US university student who had been detained in the North, was returned home comatose in 2017 and died shortly thereafter.

So far, the North has been dismissive of the prospect of dialogue with the US. In a press statement on Monday, Kim Yo-jong, the politically powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, warned that the US “should know that its bolstered extended deterrence system and excessively extended military alliance system, a threatening entity, will only make the DPRK go farther away from the negotiating table desired by it.”

Further obstacles are expected for North Korea-US dialogue with the increased pressure on Pyongyang as South Korea and the US held their first Nuclear Consultative Group meeting on Tuesday with an emphasis on integrated extended deterrence, and a US strategic nuclear submarine arrived in Busan Port.

By Lim Jae-woo, staff reporter

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