North Korea to deport detained S’Korean citizen

Joo was arrested after crossing the Yalu River into the North from the Chinese border city of Dandong on April 22.

North Korea will repatriate a 21-year-old South Korean student who has been detained there since April, the Unification Ministry said Monday, in what could be a conciliatory gesture by the North to South Korea.

The News reports that Joo was dropped off in the North Korean border town of Panmunjom around 5:30 p.m. local time on Monday.

A number of interviews were then arranged as well as news conferences in Pyongyang where Joo told global news media that authorities in North Korea were treating him well.

The North normally releases them after they have served a short prison term, sometimes in response to a visit by a senior United States official.

Unlike a few other foreign citizens detained in the North, he was never put on trial.

In early May, CNN reported that Joo had taken a hiatus from his studies at New York University and come to North Korea after failing to find employment in the United States.

Joo had let disobeying North Korean jurisprudence but said he’d received treatment perfectly through… It is expected that he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to discuss bilateral relations and the North’s nuclear programs, which the global community has demanded be shut down.

The government’s National Intelligence Service will determine whether Joo violated security laws by entering North Korea without permission. He also assured his family that he was “healthy”. During his imprisonment, Park says he was subjected to torture and sexual abuse, ordeals from which he still bears psychological scars.

North Korea’s highest court in June sentenced two of the South Koreans, who were accused of spying, to hard labour for life, calling the punishment a lesson for those who conspire with the US and South Korea.

But it is also still possible that a rocket launch – after the North celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the foundation of its Workers’ Party on October. 10 – remains high, in which case it threatens to jeopardize the prospects for future interchange and family reunions.