North Korean Defector Speaks Out About Soldier Who Crossed Border

Yeonmi Park, who defected from North Korea as a teen and now lives in the United States as an American citizen, has spoken out about the U.S. soldier who "willingly" crossed into North Korea on Tuesday.

United States and international officials confirmed that a U.S. servicemember who was touring the Joint Security Area (JSA), the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, crossed into North Korea "without authorization" and is currently believed to be in the custody of the country's forces.

Responding to the news, Park tweeted, "Well, I hope more people who hate America defect to North Korea..."

Park has become popular among American conservative audiences in recent years for comparing the political climate and culture wars in the U.S. to her childhood in communist North Korea.

Newsweek reached out to Park via email for comment.

Appearing before an event held by the conservative group Turning Point USA last month, she told the crowd, "I think so many people in America think that somehow America is immune to tyranny, and somehow a dictatorship begins like North Korea."

"It didn't begin there. It began with amazing promises of equity. They promised a socialist paradise to us," Park said. "And with that promise, they took everything, one by one, from us."

The soldier who was detained on Tuesday is the first American to be held in North Korean custody since Bruce Byron Lowrance was detained for a month in 2018 after he illegally entered the country from China. There have been other Americans who have crossed into North Korea, but the fate of those individuals has varied and their detentions have ended in a range of outcomes from voluntary release to criminal charges.

The crossing also comes at a time when tensions between North Korea and the U.S. remain fraught. North Korea, under leader Kim Jong Un, has ramped up its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missiles programs in recent years, despite international sanctions and criticisms from the West, which say the tests are violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Yeonmi Park isn't the only North Korean defector to weigh in on Tuesday's developments. Jihyun Park, who escaped from the country twice and is now a conservative politician in the United Kingdom said the American detainee is likely to spur a vigorous campaign from Kim.

"This is likely to be the beginning of a major propaganda campaign by North Korea," she tweeted. "I remember seeing press conferences of foreigners who came to North Korea when I was young."

On the same day that the border incident occurred, the U.S. military confirmed the nuclear-armed submarine USS Kentucky's arrival in Busan—the first by a U.S. nuclear submarine to South Korea in four decades.