North Korea said Saturday it has detained a South Korean college student studying in the United States for illegally entering the country.

The 21-year-old student of New York University was caught on April 22 while crossing the Amrok River from Dandung, a Chinese border city, the North's Korean Central News Agency said in a brief report monitored in Seoul.

It identified him as Joo Won-moon, a resident of New Jersey with a U.S. green card.

The KCNA said he has admitted to his "grave crime" during interrogation by the North's relevant authorities but it provided no other details, including his motive.

In April, the North deported a U.S. woman accused of anti-Pyongyang propaganda activities.

Last year, North Korea released three American citizens -- Jeffrey Edward Fowle, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller -- who had been detained there for unspecified anti-state crimes.

But a South Korean missionary, Kim Jung-wook, remains detained in North Korea after being sentenced to hard labor for life on charges of spying and setting up underground churches.

Meanwhile, the KCNA denounced the United States and the United Nations for organizing a forum on Pyongyang's human rights violations in New York earlier this week. Three North Korean defectors were invited to testify at the forum. North Korean diplomats interrupted the conference by delivering an unscheduled statement and later stormed out of it in protest. (Yonhap)