DHAKA: North Korea is a ‘pariah state’ whose heavily militarised border with the South marks ‘freedom’s frontier’.

US president Barack Obama told American troops in Seoul on Saturday, reports The Straits Times.

Obama, who was wrapping up a two-day visit to South Korea, said Pyongyang’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is ‘a path that leads only to more isolation’.

His comments come after satellite images revealed the North could be preparing to carry out an atomic test, its fourth, despite stringent sanctions imposed by the international community.

They also come hours after Pyongyang state media claimed the North had been holding a young US citizen for two weeks because of his ‘rash behaviour’ while passing through immigration.

Obama made no mention of the man whom Pyongyang identified as 24-year-old ‘Miller Matthew Todd’, but said the North’s border with its southern neighbour separates two very different places.

BDST: 1711 HRS, APR 26, 2014