UVA student reportedly arrested in North Korea for ‘hostile acts’

North Korea announced the detention of Otto Warmbier on Friday in a state media report accusing the 21-year-old of committing a “hostile act” orchestrated by the U.S.

The student entered the country as a tourist with a plan to undermine the North’s system that was linked to the USA government, according to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency.

The United States on Saturday voiced its support for five-way talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea proposed by South Korean President Park Geun-hye, noting they will be a “useful step”.

“We are in touch with Otto’s family, the US State Department, and the Embassy of Sweden in Pyongyang and doing all we can to secure his release”, Mr Johnson said.

According to his social media profiles, Warmbier is from Cincinnati and is an Echols Scholar, awarded to the top 7 percent of incoming first-year students at the University of Virginia, where he majors in economics with a minor in global sustainability.

Experts said that the North has used detained Americans as leverage to force the U.S.to open bilateral talks with it.

The Associated Press and other foreign media organizations have reported that an American university student recently detained by North Korea is being held over an unspecified incident that had taken place at his hotel.

North Korea’s main ally, China, has repeatedly pushed for the talks’ resumption, but Ms Park said the North’s fourth nuclear test on January 6 underlined Pyongyang’s rejection of denuclearisation as a bargaining chip.

The latest arrest comes months after the North released another male student – a South Korean studying at New York University.

Wyoming City Schools spokeswoman Susanna Max said Warmbier was the salutatorian of his 2013 graduating class in the highly rated public high school.

Kasich says in his letter released Friday afternoon that North Korea arrests US citizens for diplomatic negotiation motives or to antagonize the United States.

“One of the problems is we don’t have a lot of leverage with North Korea because we don’t have a relationship with them to speak of that’s good”, he said.

A few thousand Westerners are thought to visit North Korea each year, and Pyongyang is pushing for more tourists as a way to help its dismal economy.

The United States, along with allies Japan and South Korea, has led calls for a tough UN Security Council resolution that would impose economic penalties that go well beyond existing sanctions.

In 2015, a Canadian pastor born in South Korea was arrested and sentenced to life in prison after the North found him guilty of subversion.

The proposed five-way dialogue will involve the five other members of what are known as the six-party talks, except North Korea.