A North Korean soldier crossed the border with South Korea Monday in a rare defection through one of the world's most fortified frontiers
A North Korean soldier crossed the border with South Korea Monday in a rare defection through one of the world's most fortified frontiers, military officials said.
The soldier, who is in his late teens, surrendered himself to South Korean border guards around 8:00 am (2300 GMT) after walking across the frontier in Hwacheon northeast of Seoul, the South's defense ministry said.
"We've confirmed his will to defect after he reached our guard post" a ministry spokesman told AFP.
He was under investigation by the authorities, and the ministry promised to disclose details later.
The defection sparked a tense stand-off between North and South Korean border guards across the four-kilometer (2.5-mile-) wide and 248-kilometre-long demilitarized zone, but there was no conflict, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Hundreds of North Koreans flee their isolated homeland each year but it is rare for defectors to cross the land border, marked by barbed wire and guarded by tens of thousands of troops on both sides.
Most North Koreans who flee repression and poverty at home cross the porous frontier with China first before traveling through a Southeast Asian nation and eventually arriving in South Korea.
In 2012, a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse.
In August last year, two North Koreans swam across the Yellow Sea border to a South Korean front line island.