PYONGYANG,
North Korea (AP) -- North Korea has detained a U.S. citizen,
officials said Sunday, bringing to three the number of Americans now
being held there.
Tony Kim, who also goes by
his Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained on Saturday, according to
Park Chan-mo, the chancellor of the Pyongyang University of Science and
Technology.
Park said Kim, who is 58, taught
accounting at the university for about a month. He said Kim was detained
by officials as he was trying to leave the country from Pyongyang's
international airport. A university spokesman said he was trying to
leave with his wife on a flight to China.
The
Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang said it was aware of a Korean-American
citizen being detained recently, but could not comment further. The
embassy looks after consular affairs for the United States in North
Korea because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
The
State Department said it was aware of the report about a U.S. citizen
being detained, but declined further comment "due to privacy
considerations."
Park said Kim had taught at
the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China before coming
to Pyongyang. He said he was informed that the detention had "nothing to
do" with Kim's work at the university but did not know further details.
As of Sunday night, North Korea's official media had not reported on the detention.
The
Pyongyang University of Science and Technology is the only privately
funded university in North Korea.
It held its first classes in 2010. It
is unique in the North for its large number of foreign staff.
Colin
McCulloch, the director of external affairs, said the university was
not under investigation and was continuing its normal operations. He
said he could not immediately confirm Kim's hometown.
Though
no details on why Kim was detained have been released, the detention
comes at a time of unusually heightened tensions between the U.S. and
North Korea. Both countries have recently been trading threats of war
and having another American in jail will likely up the ante even
further.
Last year, Otto Warmbier, then a
21-year-old University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was
sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in prison after he confessed to
trying to steal a propaganda banner.
Kim Dong
Chul, who was born in South Korea but is also believed to have U.S.
citizenship, is serving a sentence of 10 years for espionage.
Another
foreigner, a Canadian pastor, is also being detained in North Korea.
Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian citizen in his 60s, was
convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges of trying
to use religion to destroy the North Korean system and helping U.S. and
South Korean authorities lure and abduct North Korean citizens.
