US citizen was detained in the DPRK

At the Pyongyang International Airport on Friday, a US citizen was detained by Korean origin by the name of Kim. Thiswas reported on April 23 by Yonhap with reference to anonymous sources. The name of the American is not given in the publication; The reason for the detention is unknown.

Kimu under 60 years, earlier he was a professor at the University of Science and Technology in the Chinese city of Yanji, Girin Province. Yanji is located near the border with the DPRK; This is the capital of the Yanbyan-Korean Autonomous Okrug. The university registered in the United States is designed for Korean students.

Recently, the agency reports, the professor participated in the DPRK assistance programs. He arrived in North Korea about a month ago in connection with the implementation of one of these programs. Kim was detained when he was going to fly back to the United States.

As the director of the Seoul World Center for Research, DPRK AN Chkhan Il, Pyongyang, "it seems that he intends to use Professor Kim as a trump card in negotiations" with the United States.

Since 2009, over 10 US citizens were detained in North Korea on charges of various crimes, including against the state. Their fate became the subject of bargaining with Washington.

Last March, 21-year-old Otto Wormbir, a student at the University of Virginia, was sentenced to 15 years of labor camps for taking a propaganda poster from a hotel in Pyongyan. In April 2016, the American pastor Kim Don Chol, who, like his namesake professor, arrived in the DPRK with a humanitarian mission, received a 10-year term on charges of espionage.