CNN reports American detained by North Korean government

Kim insisted that the interview be conducted in Korean through an official translator, and the translation was later independently corroborated.

The translation was later independently corroborated by CNN. Although his informant was also arrested, Kim is unaware of his whereabouts and fate.

“I was tasked with taking photos of military secrets and “scandalous” scenes”, he said.

North Korea warned the United States on Tuesday that it is now capable of “wiping [all of it] out”, in the face of skepticism surrounding the reclusive state’s nuclear technology.

South Korea and China have grown increasingly close in recent years.

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said he could not confirm the report. North Korean officials are “neither nutcases nor comic book characters”, he writes.

The report notes that when asked what he would like to tell his family, the pastor teared up: “I have realized so keenly how valuable my family is, how precious it is to me”, he said.

Kim still has a wife and child in China, and has been unable to contact them during his imprisonment. Repeated attempts to reach his wife using a phone number provided by Kim were unsuccessful’.

North Korea has used detained U.S. nationals in the past as bait to draw prominent American figures into Pyongyang and open dialogue with Washington.

Former Department of State Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said the government agency was doing all it could to secure Bae’s release in April 2013.

Opposition party lawmakers and many experts on North Korea have expressed opposition to the idea of Seoul’s nuclear armament as a tit-for-tat response to the North’s reckless behavior. The other is Korean-Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, sentenced last month to hard labour for life.

Lim, who had lived in Canada since 1986, gets three meals and day and regular medical attention, CNN said.

On Wednesday, Park said in a nationally televised news conference that South Korea will push as hard as it can for strong sanctions that can force change in North Korea.

Yet some of Kim’s statement sounds suspiciously like propaganda, something he denied when pressed by Ripley: “Seeing that this H-bomb test has succeeded, now is the time to abandon hostile policies and work to help North Korea“.

“I used to think they deified their leaders too much, but as I read the memoirs of both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, they never called themselves gods”, Lim told CNN on Saturday.

According to Reuters, Kim is not the only Westerner being held in North Korea.

“North Korea will do it to the end until China and the United States want to sign a peace treaty”, said the source, who declined to be identified. There’s no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of USA citizens overseas… we request North Korea release them so they may return home.