North Korea detains US citizen
A university spokesman said he was trying to leave with his wife on a flight to China.
The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang said it was aware of a Korean American citizen being detained recently, but could not comment further.
The embassy looks after consular affairs for the United States in North Korea because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
The State Department said it was aware of the report about a U.S. citizen being detained, but declined further comment “due to privacy considerations.”
Though no details on why Kim was detained have been released, the detention comes at a time of unusually heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
Last year, Otto Warmbier, then a 21-year-old University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in prison after he confessed to trying to steal a propaganda banner.