Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities are investigating the student who it says entered the North as a tourist with a plot to undermine a unity among the North Koreans. The date of his arrest wasn’t clear.
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Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate, called the arrest “inexcusable”.
In a letter sent Friday to Obama, Kasich wrote North Korea “should be called upon either to provide immediate evidence of Mr. Warmbier’s alleged anti-state activities or to discharge Mr. Warmbier from custody immediately”.
Other social media indicators suggest Warmbier’s interests include global sustainability and climate change. A Theta Chi fraternity brother, Miles Kirwin, added, “He’s an incredible guy”. He attended high school in Wyoming, a suburb of Cincinnati, and was the salutatorian of his graduating class in 2013, said Susanna Max, spokeswoman for Wyoming City Schools.
An attorney who represented Jeffrey Fowle in 2014 advised caution for those involved with the student.
The United States and North Korea are still officially at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Tepe says Fowle is “doing wonderful” and seems to have adjusted well back home.
North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners, and the USA and Canadian governments advise against travel there.
Earlier this month, a Korean-American man told CNN in Pyongyang that he was being held by the state for spying.
“There may have been some utility to the six-party talks in the past as a framework for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue through dialogue, but you have to question their effectiveness when the situation is persisting with no talks at all, and even the ones that are held don’t help with North Korea’s denuclearization”, Park said during the joint 2016 policy report to the president by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and Unification at the Blue House guesthouse on the morning of January 22.
The State Department said little about the case Friday, other than it was “aware of media reports” that a USA citizen was detained.
Currently, North Korea is known to be holding three Westerners including Warmbier.
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South Korea recently warned that the North would continue testing nuclear weapons unless China joined its decisive action to “punish” its latest test. The country also warned that the USA and its allies were cooking up new sanctions meant to inflict “bone-numbing pain” on the North in retaliation for its latest nuclear test. Critics say such trips have provided diplomatic credibility to the North.
