Report: Detained US reporters likely in Pyongyang

Two American journalists detained by North Korean soldiers are believed to have been sent to Pyongyang for questioning, a news report said Sunday.

North Korea said Saturday it was investigating two Americans it detained Tuesday for “illegally intruding” into its territory after crossing the border from China.

A brief dispatch from the North’s official Korean Central News Agency gave no other details, but it was apparent confirmation of reported arrests of two female U.S. journalists reporting on North Korean refugees in the border area.

South Korean media and a South Korean missionary identified the two detained Americans as Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s San Francisco-based media outlet Current TV.

A U.S. official said Saturday that the United States has been in touch with North Korean representatives about the journalists and is awaiting a reply.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the issue, said the United States doesn’t know where the North is holding them.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Sunday, in a report from the Chinese city of Yanji, that it is highly likely that they were sent to Pyongyang to be investigated for their alleged border intrusion.

“Considering the significance of the case, there is a high possibility that the two U.S. journalists have been sent to Pyongyang and are undergoing a direct investigation” by the North’s spy agency and military, Yonhap quoted a source in China it described as privy to North Korean affairs.

Yonhap quoted other sources in China as saying the North’s confirmation of the arrest appeared to demonstrate that Pyongyang’s intelligence and military headquarters are directly interrogating the journalists.

Yonhap also said the North is expected to “politically” use the U.S. journalists in its negotiations with the U.S. government.