{"id":316117,"date":"2025-10-19T13:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T13:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/316117\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T13:47:16","slug":"north-korean-soldier-defects-to-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/316117\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean soldier defects to South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the rivals\u2019 heavily fortified border<\/a> on Sunday, South Korea\u2019s military said.<\/p>\n

The military took the custody of the soldier who crossed the central portion of the land border, South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said the soldier expressed a desire to resettle in South Korea. <\/p>\n

It was the first reported defection by a North Korean soldier since a North Korean staff sergeant fled to South Korea via the border\u2019s eastern section in August 2024.<\/p>\n

Despite the two border crossings, it isn\u2019t common for North Koreans to defect via the land border<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Unlike its official name, the Demilitarized Zone, the 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide border is guarded by land mines,<\/a> tank traps, barbed wire fences and combat troops. In 2017, when a fleeing North Korean soldier sprinted across the border, North Korean soldiers fired about 40 rounds, before South Korean soldiers could drag the wounded soldier to safety. <\/p>\n

A vast majority of about 34,000 North Koreans who have fled to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War came via China, which shares a long, porous border with North Korea.<\/p>\n

Relations between the two Koreas remain strained, with North Korea repeatedly rejecting outreach by South Korea\u2019s liberal President Lee Jae Myung,<\/a> who took office in June with a vow to restore reconciliation between the rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the rivals\u2019 heavily fortified…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":316118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,57,30359,8132,50,24240,3659,15243,30357,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-316117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-lee-jae-myung","11":"tag-military-and-defense","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-north-korea","14":"tag-north-korea-government","15":"tag-south-korea","16":"tag-south-korea-government","17":"tag-world","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115401146859905696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}