South Korea media says North Korean resident crossed border waters to defect

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean media says one North Korean resident escaped to the South across waters on the western portion of the border between the two countries and expressed intent to resettle in the South.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing anonymous military sources, said the unidentified individual crossed an estuary where the Han River meets the Yellow Sea and was taken by South Korean troops at the South’s border island of Gyodong.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, when asked about the report during a parliamentary session, said South Korea’s National Intelligence Service was investigating related matters but didn’t elaborate.

The spy agency and South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm the alleged defection.

Tensions between the war-divided rivals are at their highest in years as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to use Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distraction to further accelerate his weapons development and continues verbal threats of nuclear conflict with Washington and Seoul.

In response, South Korea, the United States and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises and sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. military assets.