Two North Koreans – a military officer and a civilian – reportedly defected to South Korea early Saturday.

According to South Korea's Yonhap Nedws Agency, South Korean military personnel spotted the defectors on a boat in the Yellow Sea, between China’s mainland and the Korean Peninsula.  

The defectors showed an apparent willingness to flee the North, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source.

It was the first defection involving a military officer since 2008 and 14^th involving a soldier since 2000, DW News reported.  

It also came during a delicate time in inter-Korean diplomacy.

In late April, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for a historic summit to discuss the North's denuclearization and a formal peace treaty.

But North Korea “indefinitely” called off future talks with the South and threatened to cancel a scheduled summit in Singapore with President Donald Trump in response to a routine series of U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North has repeatedly condemned as a “dress rehearsal” for invasion.

Trump has remained steadfast in his insistence that the U.N. sanctions won’t be lifted unless the North significantly denuclearizes.

In retaliation for the joint military exercises, North Korea barred South Korean journalists from observing the rogue state’s planned closure of nuclear test sites next Friday.

Following North Korea’s threat Wednesday to pull out of the June 12 summit with the United States, South Korea said it wishes to play the role of mediator.

North Korea’s threat comes amidst the United States insistence that the rogue state must completely denuclearize within six months, Reuters reported, citing a Japanese paper.

A South Korean official said the country will “convey (to the United States) what we’ve discerned about North Korea’s position and attitude…and sufficiently convey the United States’ position to North Korea.”

Routine U.S.-South Korean military drills irked Pyongyang enough to threaten cancelling the June summit between Kim Jong Un and  President Trump.

North Korea’s state-run media, KCNA, denounced the exercises as a “military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula.”

An official from Blue House – South Korea’s White House equivalent – said President Moon Jae-in and the South Korean government will take a more active role in mediating between the United States and North Korea.

Moon is scheduled to attend a May 22 summit at the White House to speak with Trump, where they are expected to discuss the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit.

North Korea has begun demolishing buildings and removing mining carts at its primary, but dilapidated, nuclear test site in preparation to close it next week, satellite images indicated, as questions loom about at least one other possible facility Kim Jong Un can turn to to test his weapons of mass destruction.

The images obtained by 38 North showed several changes to Punggye-ri nuclear test site between April 20 and May 7, including razed buildings. A shed and engineering office building at the site’s north portal, where the last five nuclear tests were conducted, were gone in recent satellite images.

"Commercial satellite imagery from May 7 provided the first definitive evidence that dismantlement of the test site was already well underway," the report published Monday stated.

Buildings at the new west portal also appeared to be removed. Rail lines and carts seemed to be tipped over or disassembled.

The images leaked about a week before North Korea is expected to hold a “ceremony” to publicly dismantle the facility. The regime said it plans to close the nuclear test site by collapsing tunnels and removing observation and research facilities. The entrances will also be blocked out. Journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain were invited to the planned event on May 23-25.

The early start the dismantling, however, appears to be an attempt by North Korean officials who are “sanitizing” the site to scrub information they don't want in the hands of journalists, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told the Wall Street Journal.

Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the North was doing “preparatory work” for the scheduled dismantling of the site. He did not specify what the military has seen.

Analysts say the closure of the site is mostly symbolic for North Korea and doesn't represent a material step toward denuclearization. Kim pledged to denuclearize even though he said North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program was complete.   

Although North Korea committed to closing Punggye-ri’s test site, another facility could be used to continue the country’s nuclear weapons program. Yongbyon nuclear complex, located about 64 miles north of Pyongyang, has a new reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. Pyongyang insists is being used to produce electricity for its citizens.

The regime began operating its first nuclear reactor at the complex in the 1980s, The New York Times reported. In 2007, North Korea shut down facilities in the complex as part of an agreement during six-nation nuclear talks. A cooling tower was demolished at the complex as a “gesture of good faith,” but did little to completely shut down the site.

Satellite images in 2010 showed the regime was beginning to construct a new reactor. Officials announced three years later that it would restart the reactor at Yongbyon, the same year North Korea conducted a nuclear test. In February, satellite images appeared to show signs the five-megawatt reactor was operating. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The three Americans who were freed from detention in North Korea last week were reunited with their family days after being welcomed back to the states by President Trump and first lady Melania Trump, the Pentagon announced Sunday.  

Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim were released from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after receiving physical examinations upon their return from North Korea early Thursday, Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Carla Gleason said on Sunday.

“The returnees have left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. All three were grateful, in good spirits and coping well,” the statement read. “The returnees have been reunited with their families. Their time together has been an incredibly joyous occasion.”

Gleason said the three Americans asked for privacy as they return to their lives in the U.S.

Trump, the first lady and Vice President Pence met with the three Korean-Americans at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland moments after their plane landed. The plane arrived from Alaska, where it had stopped Wednesday after leaving North Korea. The former “hostages,” as Trump called them, left the Hermit Kingdom on Wednesday following talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

TRUMP GREETS AMERICAN DETAINEES FREED FROM NORTH KOREA

Trump had announced the three men's release on Twitter Wednesday and said they were in "good health." About a week before, he hinted that their return to the U.S. was imminent. The president later said it was a “great honor” to welcome the former detainees home, but said "the true honor is going to be if we have a victory in getting rid of nuclear weapons."

The three men said they thank Trump and the American people for bringing them home.

"We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return. God Bless America, the greatest nation in the world," the three men said in a statement released by the State Department.

The three men were detained or sentenced in North Korea in the last couple of years. Kim Dong Chul was the longest-serving detainee among the three. He was sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor for allegedly "perpetrating state subversive plots and espionage against" North Korea. Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song were accused of engaging in “hostile acts” against the regime in separate incidents.

Their release comes ahead of the historic summit between Trump and North Korean Leader Kim set for June 12 in Singapore.  

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson, Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump responded Saturday to North Korea’s announcement that it plans to dismantle its nuclear test site in less than two weeks, meaning the job would be finished before Trump’s planned summit with Kim Jong Un next month.

“Thank you,” the president tweeted in reaction to the news, adding the move was “a very smart and gracious gesture!”

Earlier in the day, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the hermit Kingdom plans to destroy all of the tunnels at the country's northeastern testing ground by an explosion, as well as remove the observation and research facilities and guard units at the site.

In the same announcement, North Korea invited journalists from the U.S., South Korea, China, Britain and Russia to witness the event.

Kim had already revealed plans to shut the test site by the end of May during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month. But analysts say the plan doesn't represent a material step toward full denuclearization.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who recently returned from North Korea after helping to free three American citizens detained by Kim’s regime – said he and Kim had held “substantive” talks during his visit, and was confident that he and Kim “have a pretty good understanding between our two countries about what the shared objectives are.”

But Pompeo added that a “robust verification program” was essential to ensure the success of any agreements that Trump and Kim reach during their planned summit.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted that the "highly anticipated meeting" between himself and Kim, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, represents a potentially "very special moment for World Peace!"

Previously, Moon anfd Kim, during their meeting at a border truce village, vaguely promised to work toward the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, but made no references to verification or timetables.

North Korea has invited the outside world to witness the dismantling of its nuclear facilities before. In June 2008, international broadcasters were allowed to show the demolishing of a cooling tower at the Nyongbyon reactor site, a year after the North reached an agreement with the U.S. and four other nations to disable its nuclear facilities in return for an aid package worth about $400 million.

But in September 2008, the North declared that it would resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The administration of George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed that December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The North went on to conduct its second nuclear test in May 2009.

Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and Lucia I. Suarez Sang and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

North Korea has scheduled a “ceremony” to dismantle its nuclear testing site on May 23-25 ahead of President Donald Trump’s summit with leader Kim Jong Un next month, state media said Saturday.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that all the tunnels at the country’s northeastern testing ground will be destroyed by explosion and that observation and research facilities and ground-based testing units will also be removed. The dramatic and symbolic event is part of the Hermit Kingdom’s pledge to discontinue nuclear tests.

“The Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test,” said the announcement. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The nuclear site that will be dismantled is located in Pukyong, Yonhap News reported.

The announcement comes after Trump said he would hold a summit with Kim in Singapore on June 12. It will be the first meeting ever between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea.

Kim had revealed plans to shut down the nuclear test site during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said North Korea can look forward to “a future brimming with peace and prosperity” if it agrees to quickly give up its nuclear weapons.

The North said they plan to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process.

North Korea’s six known nuclear tests have taken place in Punggye-ri, a location in the northeastern part of North Korea where a system of tunnels have been dug under Mount Mantap, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

North Korea has scheduled a “ceremony” to dismantle its nuclear on May 23-25 ahead of President Donald Trump’s summit with leader Kim Jong Un next month, state media said Saturday.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that all the tunnels at the country’s northeastern testing ground will be destroyed by explosion and that observation and research facilities and ground-based testing units will also be removed. The dramatic and symbolic event is part of the Hermit Kingdom’s pledge to discontinue nuclear tests.

“The Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test,” said the announcement. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The nuclear site that will be dismantled is located in Pukyong, Yonhap News reported.

The announcement comes after Trump said he would hold a summit with Kim in Singapore on June 12. It will be the first meeting ever between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea.

Kim had revealed plans to shut down the nuclear test site during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said North Korea can look forward to “a future brimming with peace and prosperity” if it agrees to quickly give up its nuclear weapons.

The North said they plan to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process.

North Korea’s six known nuclear tests have taken place in Punggye-ri, a location in the northeastern part of North Korea where a system of tunnels have been dug under Mount Mantap, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Trump has set a date for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" Trump tweeted on May 10. 

It will be the first-ever meeting between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

“It’s important because of the potential opening it has; there is potential diplomatic progress,” former Vice Adm. Robert B. Murrett, a professor of practice, public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University, told Fox News.

Murrett, who also serves as deputy director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at the college, specializes in national security, international relations, military and defense strategy.

“This is something we haven’t been able to do for many years,” he added.

Fox News asked Murrett to explain what the summit could mean for this nation's future, and he answered three questions about the meeting that Americans should know.

Why is this meeting so significant?

Aside from the potential diplomatic benefits between the U.S. and North Korea, the summit could benefit other countries.

“It not just about the United States,” he said, explaining that the meeting could also be a win for “our partners in the east, such as South Korea and Japan, but also areas in the South Pacific region such as Australia.”

He added, “These talks have the ability to reduce security tensions in East Asia and present an opportunity for the U.S. to reinforce the strong links with South Korea, Japan and even China."

What topics should we expect Kim and Trump to discuss?

Denuclearization will be at the forefront, Murrett said.

North Korea’s “nuclear weapons and ability to deliver them at long distances should be central,” said Murrett, who added that recent talks between North and South Korea “would suggest that it would remain a core issue.”

But Murrett also expects discussion of the Hermit Kingdom's role in the global economy.

Despite various sanctions placed on the country, North Korea’s economy grew by 3.9 percent in 2016. But Murrett said diplomatic talks represent the “prospect of North Korea rejoining the family of the Asians” if only from an economic standpoint, potentially opening the door for the country to trade with more than just China.

“It would be in the interest of the people of North Korea,” Murrett added.

Does Trump deserve credit for the summit?

In short: Yes. In part.

While Trump does deserve credit for agreeing to meet with Kim, his decision to do so was likely sparked by “the window of opportunity that has existed because of ongoing pressure” on North Korea to better its relations with surrounding countries and beyond, Murrett said.

South Korea President Moon Moon Jae-in deserves a “fair amount of credit,” he said, citing the recent summit between the two Koreas and the display of unity at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang as one of “several steps toward unification in some fashion or another.”

“Trump is one of many important players,” said Murrett, noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe are also key players. 

Abe met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, where the two “affirmed their strong determination to strengthen our shared resolve on North Korea, and increase the capability of the U.S.-Japan Alliance to confront all emerging threats to peace, stability, and an international order based on the rule of law,” the White House said at the time.

And President Xi and Kim secretly met in May in China, Chinese state television announced after the North Korean leader had already left the country.

"[The leaders] had an all-round and in-depth exchange of views on China-[North Korea] relations and major issues of common concern," the Chinese news agency reported, while Kim was quoted saying that he hopes to “build a mutual trust with the U.S. through dialogue.”

Fox News' Katherine Lam and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump greeted the three American detainees freed from North Korea early Thursday morning at Andrews Air Force Base.

Trump was joined by First Lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. There is a motorcade awaiting their arrival that will take the detainees to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for further examinations.

Trump entered the plane with the first lady to greet the men and stayed there for several minutes. 

The hostages left North Korea early Wednesday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Trump has referred to the men as hostages.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump “appreciates leader Kim Jong Un’s action to release these American citizens, and views this as a positive gesture of goodwill.”

She added, “The three Americans appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance.”

North Korea had accused Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim, all Korean-Americans, of anti-state activities. Their arrests were widely seen as politically motivated and had compounded the dire state of relations over the isolated nation’s nuclear weapons.

The three had been held for periods ranging from one and two years. They were the latest in a series of Americans who have been detained by North Korea in recent years for seemingly small offenses.

“We would like to express our deep appreciation to the United States government, President Trump, Secretary Pompeo, and the people of the United States for bringing us home,” the three said in an earlier statement released by the State Department.

The three detainees and Pompeo flew on separate government planes because they were receiving medical checkups during the flight from Japan and the larger plane was better equipped to provide the equipment.

A U.S. official told Reuters that Singapore appears to be the likely meeting location for the upcoming summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

President Donald Trump tweeted that he “will be there to greet” the three Americans who were held by North Korea for alleged subversion, espionage and other unspecified hostile acts when they land at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington early Thursday morning.

The freed Americans told the State Department upon touching down in Alaska Wednesday evening: “We would like to express our deep appreciation to the United States government, President Trump, Secretary Pompeo, and the people of the United States for bringing us home. We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return.  God Bless America, the greatest nation in the world.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left North Korea early Wednesday morning with the three American detainees, whom the Trump administration had referred to as “hostages.” They were released ahead of an upcoming meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that will focus on North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

The Trump administration had made clear it regarded the arrests as politically motivated, and had been bitterly critical of North Korea’s refusal to grant consular access to the three men, other than a brief visit by a U.S. envoy last June.

Trump also said that a date and location now have been set for his historic summit with Kim, later telling reporters that it would not be at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump “appreciates leader Kim Jong Un’s action to release these American citizens, and views this as a positive gesture of goodwill.” 

“The three Americans appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance,” she said.

Kim Dong Chul, a South Korean-born U.S. citizen, is the longest-serving detainee among the three.

According to North Korea’s state media, Kim, 64, ran a company in the North’s northeastern Rason special economic zone before his arrest on Oct. 2, 2015. He received a 10-year prison term with hard labor in April 2016 for allegedly “perpetrating state subversive plots and espionage against” North Korea.

Before his sentencing, the former Virginia resident publicly apologized for slandering North Korea’s leadership, collecting and passing confidential information to South Korea, and joining a smear campaign against the North’s human rights situation.

Other foreigners have been presented at news conferences in North Korea and admitted crimes against the North, but many said after they were released that their confessions were given involuntarily and under duress.

Tony Kim, who also goes by the Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained on April 22, 2017, at the Pyongyang airport for committing “criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn” North Korea, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency.

It didn’t say what specific criminal acts Kim was alleged to have committed.

Kim taught accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, which has been the only privately funded college in North Korea since its founding in 2010 with donations from Christian groups.

The school said Kim’s detention had nothing to do with his work at the university.

He previously taught Korean at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in Yanji, China, not far from the North Korea border.

Kim graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a master’s degree in business administration in 1990.

He made at least seven trips to North Korea to teach. His wife accompanied him on the visit when he was arrested. She was allowed to leave the country.

Kim Hak Song worked in agricultural development at an experimental farm run by the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. He was detained on May 6, 2017, for engaging in unspecified “hostile acts” against North Korea, KCNA reported.

It didn’t say whether his case was related to Tony Kim’s.

The university also said his detention wasn’t related to his work at the school.

It wasn’t known whether Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song were formally convicted and sentenced.

They are the latest in a series of Americans to be held in North Korea for alleged anti-state activities in recent years, only to be freed during the visit of a high-level U.S. official or statesman.

American detainee Otto Warmbier died in June 2017 — just days after he was brought back to the U.S. with severe brain damage. He was arrested in January 2016 and accused of stealing a propaganda poster and was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.

Fox News' Nick Kalman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.