US soldier believed to be detained by North Korea after crossing border

 

News this morning.

We learned just a short time ago

that a U.S.

national was detained by North Korea.

It is believed the man is a U.S.

soldier.

That is according

to an American official.

Now, according to the United Nations

command, the man was on tour of a joint

security area

when he crossed the military.

DeMarco mission line right on the border.

We'll get a map at some point

to show you where it is

right on the border

between North and South Korea,

the demilitarized zone.

He crossed the border

into North Korean territory.

It is believed,

when he was taken into custody.

We have team coverage.

We're joined

from the State Department,

from the White House.

We have our military analyst available

first though.

Let's go to CNN's Will Ripley,

who has been to North Korea

so many times.

Will, give us a sense of what happened

Well, it's a very

interesting location, John,

because Panmunjom is basically

a series of buildings that straddle

the border

between North

and South Korea in an area known

as the DMZ, the demilitarized zone.

Half the buildings in the north,

half the buildings in the south.

It's like a tourist attraction.

There are gift

shops on the North Korean side

and the South Korean side.

You can get souvenirs

People go and yes,

they see armed soldiers

and sniper towers.

And there are still mines in the woods.

So it can be a pretty dangerous area.

But a lot of people cross through

without incident.

Every single day

that it's open

and it's open

for much of the year on the

on the South Korean side,

although the pandemic obviously

has thrown a wrench in some of that.

Certainly it does on the North as well.

So this would have been a pretty routine

type of,

you know, tour

showing these service members.

This is what North Korea looks like.

They're standing

very close to North Korea,

but it certainly doesn't happen

or doesn't

frequently happen

that somebody would actually

step out of their group

and actually take that

that walk across the military demarcation

line is the line that President

Trump crossed

when he technically became

the first sitting U.S.

president to cross into North Korean soil

when he was having

some impromptu discussions with Kim

Jong un at the DMZ.

And this if indeed

this is a service member

who has attempted to defect

to North Korea, John,

it actually wouldn't be

the first time

we know of at least six U.S.

servicemen who have defected

to North Korea.

But the last time it happened

was more than 40 years ago, back in 1982.

It's a very different time now.

North Korea is a nuclear armed nation.

They've been conducting lots of launches,

trying to get the attention

of the United States

through their missile testing.

And the Biden administration has not

reached out at all.

But now, John,

interestingly, this American

in North

Korean custody may be an opportunity

for the North Koreans

to engage

that they did not have until this person

apparently decided

to make those steps

across the demarcation

line into North Korea.

Will, just to be clear,

we don't know why he crossed the line,

if indeed he

did, in fact, crossed the line.

But how easy is it?

I mean, when you were on tour there,

how close is the North Korean side

and how big of a step is it to simply

go across like that?

You know, it's funny,

I've actually only done the tour

on the North Korean side.

I've never

I signed up for the South Korean

tour once

and then they canceled the tour.

So I didn't actually get to do it.

So from from the North Korean side,

I can tell you it's a bit of a distance.

You might have to

if you were trying

to get over there in a matter of seconds,

you might have to do a little bit

of a jog to get across.

Maybe it would take

you five or 10 seconds

if you're walking briskly,

but it's not a very long distance.

It's not a very difficult thing to cross.

You can see in the video

there, there's blue buildings.

There's a nice gap in the middle

and somebody could

just walk right through

if that's what they wanted to do.

But very few people do that.

And obviously,

when North Koreans

attempt to do the crossing

sometimes they're even fired

at by other North Korean soldiers.

There have actually been

incidents of bullets flying in this area

with North Korean defectors.

Obviously, we don't believe that

there were any shots fired

in this case of somebody actually

walking from south to north.

But it's pretty rare.

As I said,

a service

member hadn't happened in decades.

All right.

Will Ripley,

stand by for us for a moment.

Priscilla Alvarez at the White House.

What are you hearing

from there this morning?

This is a situation, John,

and the White House is closely monitoring

and trying to wrap their arms around.

As you heard there,

there is limited communication

with North Korea.

So this is a situation in which U.S.

officials are talking to their allies

and really leaning on them

as they try to gather more information

about the circumstances

in which this U.S.

national, which was on this tour,

crossed into North Korea

and is now believed to be detained.

Now, again,

it is a complicated relationship

that the U.S.

has with North Korea

and one in which the U.S.

has tried to reach out in the past

on issues

like denuclearization

and not received a response.

But we do have a sense

a little bit

about what communication they do have

from national security spokesman

John Kirby.

Look,

we have

channels to be able

to communicate with Pyongyang.

We don't have as you know, Kaitlan,

we don't have an embassy there.

We don't have direct

diplomatic relations.

But there are ways to pass

communications back and forth.

So as you heard there,

there are ways for them

to pass communication back and forth.

But without those diplomatic relations,

it makes it

all the more difficult

and makes this a very tenuous situation.

But I will also add,

this has been a White House

that has made this hand Americans

a priority.

President Biden spoke to it

just last week

when he was in Finland

saying that

he would do all he can,

the administration would do

all they can for detained Americans.

I have reached out to the White House

for more comment on this situation.

They have not yet weighed in. John.

Priscilla, any sense of the president

has been notified yet of this incident?

We are asking those questions.

The White House has not confirmed

that's been the case.

But you can imagine in a situation

like this,

when there is a detained American,

the president would be well aware of it.

All right.

Priscilla Alvarez at the White House.

Stand by.

Kylie Atwood now

at the State Department,

obviously relations is

at the diplomatic level with North

Korea, are more or less nonexistent.

What is the view from there this morning?

And because of that, that makes a moment

like this even more challenging,

even more complicated for U.S.

officials?

Right, John,

if you reflect back on the Trump

administration,

there was pretty regular contact

between U.S.

officials and North Korean officials

as they were setting up

those summits between

President Trump and Kim Jong un.

So we know that there are ways

for the U.S.

to send those signals

to send contacts to North Korea.

But our understanding

is that those haven't been hot channels

that have been active

over the course

of the last few years, with U.S.

officials saying

they haven't received

substantive responses

from the North Korean side.

As they have reached out

to engage, saying

that there would be no preconditions,

they wouldn't be asking North Korea

to do anything to partake

in initial conversations.

But the North Koreans

just haven't done so.

And even in this incident,

we're still waiting

to learn more details.

All we know right now

is that according to the U.N.

command,

which preserves the stability

of the Korean peninsula,

this American crossed

over the demarcation line

from South Korea to North Korea

and did so without authorization.

So we're waiting to

learn a little bit more

about what that means.

Was the person aggressively

crossing over,

as we have heard from experts

and I myself

have been to the area,

it's pretty

hard to cross over in an accidental way

because these tours are not done

to be provocateur. Live.

These tours are done to show off

what the United Nations has been able

to do

to maintain stability between South Korea

and North Korea.

So we're waiting to hear a little bit

more about just how this all went down.

But we should note that

there are not before this incident,

any known Americans

who were detained by North Korea

at this time.

The last Americans

who are released from North

Korea were released in 20, 18

three Americans.

And then, of course,

after that,

we saw that there were multiple

summits between President Trump

and Kim

Jong un, which

obviously didn't deliver

any results on denuclearization.

But it was the first time

that we saw such high level engagement

between the two sides.

Kylie Atwood,

let me just ask

and put a fine point on it,

because there is still so much

we don't know.

We do not know at this point

if this US soldier willingly,

decisively walked across the border

on purpose

or whether it was some

kind of accident, correct?

That's right.

All right.

That is very important to know

at this point to determine,

I think, the posture of both countries

as we move

forward over the next several hours.

I want to bring in retired Lieutenant

General Mark Hertling.

You obviously have been

near there, General.

You know what it's like

to be a serviceman on duty

and also on tours there.

Give us your perspective

Yeah, I've been there, John.

In 1999

I was commanding a brigade

of the Second Infantry Division.

We took

a group of soldiers up there

to do exactly what happened here.

It was a tour

to see what we were defending.

The reason those buildings are blue is

this is a U.N. command post.

This is not a U.S.

command post.

There are South Koreans, Canadians,

other forces there.

It's mostly guarded by U.S.

forces, military policemen.

But these are the best of the best.

And the same is true on the other side.

The North Korean soldiers that are

there are all chosen for their height,

their strictness.

They're all over six foot tall.

This you don't mess around

when you go to Panmunjom in this site.

This site is on a post

named Camp Boniface.

Art Boniface was a instructor

and water polo

coach of mine at West Point

who was killed

in an ax cutting incident in 1976.

The post is named after him

when he was killed

by North Korean soldiers.

They take their jobs seriously.

And again,

you just brought up

some very good points

about

what was this person

doing to cross over the border.

Was this accidental?

Was it purposeful?

Was it a defection?

We don't know.

But it's not hard.

If you're on a tour,

you see the demarcation line.

It's a couple of yards in front of you.

Just like President Trump walked up to it

and crossed over it.

But there is

a step that you have to cross over.

You know the difference

because it's painted a different color

on the north in the south side.

So, you know,

depending on what we learn

in the next couple of hours

about what happened,

you know,

I would tend to speculate one way

or another

that this was someone doing something

stupid and going across the border

when they shouldn't have been

because you're warned

before you take the tour,

do not go anywhere near

any of the contentious points

in the area.