North Korea announced today that it will put on trial a US citizen who entered the country illegally, and disclosed his identity for the first time.
The Korean Central News Agency named the man as Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, from Boston. It said Gomes would be indicted for trial "as his crime has been confirmed."
The one-paragraph report gave no details of the charges against Gomes. The North previously announced it had detained an unidentified American for illegal entry on January 25.
The State Department said last week a Swedish diplomat in Pyongyang had been allowed to see the detainee, whom it did not name, for the first time. The Swedish embassy represents US interests in Pyongyang.
Analysts said that despite the trial announcement, the communist state may be preparing to expel Gomes as a goodwill gesture.
Pyongyang is pressing Washington to agree to hold talks about a permanent peace pact to replace the armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
It wants the US commitment to discuss a peace pact, and a lifting of United Nations sanctions, before it returns to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
"I believe North Korea intends to expel him after completing legal procedures," said Kim Yong-Hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
"I guess North Korea has no intention to cause any serious trouble over this case amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to resume six-party talks."
Yang Moo-Jin, of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, also said he believed the North would use the case to improve relations.
The North freed US missionary Robert Park, who walked into the country last Christmas Day carrying a letter calling on leader Kim Jong-Il to quit because of rights abuses.
Its official news agency quoted Park as saying he had been misled by false Western propaganda about rights abuses and a lack of religious freedom in the North.
Park has said little since returning to the United States on February 6. His associates have twice scheduled and then cancelled press conferences.
In March last year the communist state detained two female US television journalists for illegal entry.
It sentenced them to 12 years' hard labour but pardoned them when former US president Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang last August and met Kim Jong-Il.
After months of hostility marked by missile launches and a second nuclear test, the North began extending peace feelers to the United States and South Korea when the journalists were freed.
The North also announced in late February it is investigating four South Koreans detained for illegal entry, but has since said nothing about the case.
The Seoul government has said it is trying to identify them. A South Korean activist said at the time the four had crossed from China in an attempt to meet leader Kim.