North Korean soldier defects to South, military says
A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea yesterday, across the heavily fortified land border that the two sides have begun to demilitarise as relations warm, the South’s military said.
The rare defection came as the two Koreas push ahead with a process of reconciliation in an effort to ease tensions, despite a stall in talks between Pyongyang and Washington on the North’s nuclear weapons programme.
The incident did not trigger any gunfire, unlike last year when a North Korean soldier ran across under a hail of bullets from his own side.
“A North Korean soldier was detected crossing the military demarcation line” by South Korean troops using surveillance equipment, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. “Related agencies plan to investigate him regarding the details of how he came to the South,” it said.
The JCS gave no further details, such as the location of the defection, the soldier’s name, rank and unit or whether he was carrying a weapon. “The soldier is safely in our custody,” it said.
The last defection from North Korea occurred in May when two civilians fled to the South across the Yellow Sea in a small boat.
In November last year, a North Korean soldier drove to the heavily guarded border at speed and ran across under fire from his own comrades.
He was hit several times in the dramatic defection at Panmunjom truce village, a major tourist attraction and the only place on the frontier where forces from the two sides come face-to-face.
Three other soldiers reportedly crossed the land border last year in separate incidents.
In 2012 a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse.
More than 30,000 North Korean civilians have fled since the peninsula was divided after fighting stopped in 1953. Most flee across the porous frontier with China. It is very rare to cross the closely guarded southern border, which is fortified with minefields and barbed wire.
In recent months, the two sides have begun to remove landmines and destroy military bunkers along the border as part of efforts to improve relations.
Despite the warming ties, it remains unclear whether the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, will make his first visit to the South this year, as Seoul is hoping.
Kim agreed to travel to Seoul after hosting his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang in September for their third summit but prospects of a fourth Moon-Kim meeting have recently dimmed, with negotiations on denuclearising the North grinding to a halt.
In an apparent bid to encourage a hesitant Kim, Moon elicited an expression of support for a visit from United States President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires on Friday.