North Korea frees South Korean held for illegal entry

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea freed and returned a South Korean national on Tuesday who the South's Unification Ministry said had been arrested by the North in late September as he crossed the river border from China. The 48-year-old man, whose name was withheld by the ministry, was the fourth person to be returned to the South by the North this year after being held for illegal entry into the isolated state. His release came a day after South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would visit North Korea's capital Pyongyang this week. No date was given for the visit. The U.N. spokesman's office and South Korea's Foreign Ministry did not comment about the reported trip. North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. Isolated North Korea last month freed a 21-year-old South Korean college student who holds a U.S. green card, six months after he was caught crossing from China. The two Koreas in August held high-level talks to end a tense standoff at their border and try to improve ties, although there have been no follow-up meetings between the governments. In June, the North repatriated a South Korean married couple who were also believed to have illegally entered the North. Three other known South Korean citizens remain in captivity in the North, including two men who appeared on North Korean media and confessed to having spied for the South. The other is a South Korean Christian missionary. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Nick Macfie)