US: North Korea has confirmed that it has a second American under arrest

US: N.Korea confirms second American in custody

WASHINGTON — North Korea notified the U.S. that it has another American in custody for allegedly entering the country illegally, the State Department announced Friday.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the North Koreans, in a bare-bones message through their representative at U.N. headquarters in New York, provided no identifying information about the detainee, including the name or gender, or details of the alleged offense.

This is the second case of a detained American in North Korea to surface in the past month, further complicating a relationship that has been badly strained for years over North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and periodic test-firing of missiles in defiance of repeated U.N. Security Council warnings.

Although it is sometimes suggested that North Korea may view its holding of Americans as a bargaining chip in the nuclear standoff, a former White House adviser on Asia policy said Friday that this is unlikely.

Victor Cha, who served in the administration of former President George W. Bush as the National Security Council’s director of Asian affairs, said in a telephone interview that the arrests more likely reflect an insecurity in Pyongyang about the stability of the regime, which is under enormous economic strain.

“They are acutely sensitive to people snooping around on their borders,” Cha said.

He cited the case of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested by North Korean border guards last March. The women were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts” against North Korea, then held in a Pyongyang guesthouse until the North pardoned them in early August after a landmark trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.

These are not the only cases of North Korea holding Americans, but the number of cases has increased over the past year.

In late December North Korea said it was holding a U.S. citizen for illegally entering through the North Korea-China border. It did not identify the man, but the State Department has said he is Robert Park, an American missionary.

On Wednesday, the North’s government-run Korean Central News Agency reported that an American had been arrested Jan. 25 for trespassing and that his case was under investigation. It provided no details, and for two days the State Department said it could not confirm the second detention.

Crowley said the North Koreans told the U.S. on Thursday that the latest arrest was of an American who had crossed illegally in North Korea from China. “There is no higher priority than the welfare of our citizens anywhere in the world,” the spokesman said.

Crowley said the U.S. is seeking through Swedish government intermediaries to gain access to the detainee to verify the person’s condition and details of the incident. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang represents U.S. interests there; Washington has no diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

The spokesman said he had no idea why the North Koreans provided so little information about the latest case.

“You continue to try to get me to explain what’s happening in North Korea, and I can’t,” Crowley told reporters.