Seoul - North Korean authorities have detained two US journalists at the border with China, news reports and a Christian group in South Korea that works with North Korean refugees said Thursday. The two women who work for US-based media were detained this week by North Korean border guards while they were filming at the Stalinist state's border with China, South Korea's Yonhap news agency and The New York Times said.
An employee of the Durihana Mission in Seoul said his organization learned of the detentions Wednesday out of China. He said he had spoken to the two journalists last week in South Korea and gave them information about North Korean refugees.
Both women worked for Current TV, a cable network founded by former US vice president Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt, he said, adding that a Chinese guide might also have been detained.
Washington is negotiating with Pyongyang for the release of the three detainees, Yonhap said, citing diplomats.
"Two reporters working for US internet news media, including a Korean-American, were detained by North Korean authorities earlier this week, and they remain in custody there," Yonhap quoted an unidentified diplomatic source as saying.
The New York Times identified the detained journalists as Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, and Euna Lee, a Korean-American. A Korean-Chinese guide was detained with them on Tuesday morning, it said.
The newspaper said South Korean Christian minister and the founder of the Durihana Mission, Chun Ki Won, helped the journalists arrange their trip to China.
Chun told the newspaper he spoke to the US journalists early Tuesday when they told him they were reporting on North Korean refugees in China.
"They told me that they completed what they went to China for - they completed their assignment," the newspaper quoted Chun as saying.
"I warned them against getting too close to the border," he said. "I suspect that they got too ambitious."
Yonhap said the journalists were arrested "after accidentally crossing into North Korea," contradicting earlier reports that North Korean border guards crossed into Chinese territory and nabbed the journalists.
Other South Korean media reports said the US journalists had been filming from across either the Tumen River or the Yalu River, which form eastern and western sections of the 1,300-kilometre border between the two countries.
Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China was still unable to confirm if the incident took place on the Chinese or North Korean side of the border.
"The Chinese government is investigating what happened to the two American citizens on the border between China and the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]," Qin told reporters in a brief comment.
The US embassies in Seoul and Beijing declined to comment on the reports, saying the matter would be handled by the State Department in Washington.
