Latest news with #maritimeborder
Al Arabiya
6 days ago
- Al Arabiya
North Korean defector rescued after swimming across border: Seoul
A North Korean defector who swam across a sea border with South Korea while reportedly tied to floating plastic has been rescued and taken into custody, Seoul authorities said Thursday. The North Korean managed to swim across the de facto maritime border off the western coast of the Korean peninsula on the night of July 30, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The border is known as the Northern Limit Line and has occasionally served as a route for North Korean defectors swimming to South Korea's Ganghwa Island. 'The military identified the individual near the north of the mid-river boundary,' a military official told reporters. The individual, who local media reported was tied to Styrofoam when he was found, waved for help and said he wanted to defect to South Korea when asked by a South Korean naval officer, the official said. The operation took about 10 hours, according to Seoul, and the individual was rescued at around 4:00 am on July 31 (1900 GMT July 30). The North Korean is now in custody and has expressed their wish to defect, the defense ministry said. Ganghwa Island, located northwest of Seoul, is one of the closest South Korean territories to North Korea, with some parts of the surrounding sea lying just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the maritime border between the two countries. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to the South since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South. Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare, as the area is densely forested, heavily mined and monitored by soldiers on both sides. But a North Korean man defected last month to the South by crossing the Military Demarcation Line. The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders -- purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the frontier with China -- to prevent the spread of COVID-19. North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul's intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South.
Asharq Al-Awsat
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Hochstein to Asharq Al-Awsat: Land Border Demarcation between Lebanon, Israel ‘is Within Reach'
The former US special envoy, Amos Hochstein, said the maritime border agreement struck between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 and the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah at the end of last year show that a land border demarcation 'is within reach.' 'We can get to a deal but there has to be political willingness,' he said. 'The agreement of the maritime boundary was unique because we'd been trying to work on it for over 10 years,' Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'I understood that a simple diplomatic push for a line was not going to work. It had to be a more complicated and comprehensive agreement. And there was a real threat that people didn't realize that if we didn't reach an agreement we would have ended up in a conflict - in a hot conflict - or war over resources.' He said there is a possibility to reach a Lebanese-Israeli land border agreement because there's a 'provision that mandated the beginning of talks on the land boundary.' 'I believe with concerted effort they can be done quickly,' he said, adding: 'It is within reach.' Hochstein described communication with Hezbollah as 'complicated,' saying 'I never had only one interlocutor with Hezbollah .... and the first step is to do shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon, Lebanon and Lebanon, and then you had to go to Israel and do shuttle diplomacy between the different factions' there. 'The reality of today and the reality of 2022 are different. Hezbollah had a lock on the political system in Lebanon in the way it doesn't today.' North of Litani The 2024 ceasefire agreement requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to take full operational control of the south Litani region, all the way up to the border. It requires Hezbollah to demilitarize and move further north of the Litani region, he said. 'I don't want to get into the details of other violations,' he said, but stated that the ceasefire works if both conditions are met. Lebanon's opportunity 'Lebanon can rewrite its future ... but it has to be a fundamental change,' he said. 'There is so much potential in Lebanon and if you can bring back opportunity and jobs - and through economic and legal reforms in the country - I think that the future is very bright,' Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'Hezbollah is not trying to control the politics and remember that Hezbollah is just an arm of Iran' which 'should not be imposing its political will in Lebanon, Israel should not be imposing its military will in Lebanon, Syria should not. No one should. This a moment for Lebanon to make decisions for itself,' he added.
