SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea on Friday presented to media a man it alleges is a South Korean spy who tried to enter the North to kidnap children.

During a Pyongyang news conference attended by The Associated Press and other foreign media, detainee Ko Hyon Chol said he apologized for a crime he called “unforgivable.”

Ko, 53, said he was born in North Korea but fled the country in early 2013 to resettle in the South. He said he was later recruited by South Korea’s spy service for a mission to abduct children from the North. He said he was arrested May 27 on an island in the Amnok River which runs along the border between North Korea and China.

MOSCOW – The United States and Russia agreed Friday on new steps they said could make a difference in Syria’s relentless civil war, hinting at an improbable military partnership that has been the subject of intense negotiation.

Underscoring the extreme fragility of their effort, neither of the country’s top diplomats spelled out what form the new steps would take.

Both sides stressed that closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia was critical to ending a conflict that has killed as many as a half-million people, contributed to a global migration crisis and spawned the international expansion of the Islamic State group.

Associated Press