As Vice President Mike Pence continues his 10-day tour of Asia, wrapping up a visit to Australia on Sunday, tensions with North Korea continue to simmer. Pence delivered tough talk during his many stops with allies in South Korea, Japan, and Australia, with North Korea responding in turn with more threats and now the detention of an American citizen at Pyongyang airport. According to The Washington Post, this latest detention would make the third U.S. citizen in DPRK captivity, the latest being the first since the latest round of threats:

The man, believed to be surnamed Kim and in his 50s, was arrested at Pyongyang’s international airport Friday as he went to leave the country, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which represents U.S. interests there because the United States does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea, confirmed that the man had been detained.

Yonhap said the man has been a professor at the Yanbian University of Science and Technology, just over the border in North Korea from China, and had been involved in aid work in the country.

The other Americans held according to The Post are a South Korean-born naturalized U.S. Citizen named Kim Dong-chul and University of Virginia Otto Warmbier, the student who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor by the dictatorship for stealing a political banner in order to “destroy the “unity” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Neither have been used as a bargaining chip between North Korea and the United States yet, but the nation has done so in the past according to The Washington Post.

North Korea followed Friday’s arrest with another warning to the U.S. and its allies about potential military strikes, with the nation’s Workers’ Party sharing threatening commentary against the U.S. warships near the country according to Reuters:

“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary.

The paper likened the aircraft carrier to a “gross animal” and said a strike on it would be “an actual example to show our military’s force”.

North Korea’s foreign minister also sent a warning to Australia, threatening a nuclear strike against the nation for standing firm with the United States according to the ABC:

The Pyongyang spokesman warned Ms Bishop to “think twice about the consequences to be entailed by her reckless tongue-lashing before flattering the US”.

“The present Government of Australia is blindly and zealously toeing the US line,” he said, accusing Australia of “spouting a string of rubbish”.

“If Australia persists in following the US’ moves to isolate and stifle North Korea … this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of North Korea.”

Of course, threats are nothing new from North Korea. Even with their increasing frequency, the actual extent of the nation’s nuclear capabilities are unclear. Their missile tests to this point have not yielded proof that they can successfully launch a nuclear strike, including their most recent which failed.

The new detainment could pose some wrinkles for the Trump administration, though, especially in light of their recent efforts to bring a U.S. aid worker home from Egypt.

(Via The Washington Post / Al Jazeera / ABC / Reuters)