Australian student Alek Sigley, reported to be detained in Pyongyang, had recently handed in his master's thesis and was preparing to return home.
He was interviewed by North Korea's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, and praised the country, in a report published this week, around the time he is believed to have been detained in Pyongyang.
Sigley complete the degree at Kim Il-sung University, where he had been studying literature, and was in good spirits in recent days, says his friend, the Australian National University North Korea expert Leonid Petrov.
Petrov says he was surprised by the news that Sigley, who he knew well, had been detained.
The Jakarta embassy often handles Australian visa requests to travel to North Korea. Sigley ran a tour company, Tongil Tours, which translates as Unification Tours.
Sigley was a frequent visitor to North Korea over the past five years after setting up his tour company. He tried to promote student tours and tours for ANU scholars, said Petrov.
Petrov said Sigley was awarded a New Colombo Plan scholarship to study in South Korea in 2016, during which time he visited North Korea several times. The student program was set up by former foreign minister Julie Bishop to send Australian students out into Asia.
He started his master's at North Korea's most prestigious university in April last year, a few months after the scholarship ended.
"He concluded his studies in January 2018," a DFAT spokesperson said of the scholarship.
It was ground-breaking for Sigley to be accepted by Kim Il-sung University as the first Australian student, Petrov said, because the institution had previously rejected approaches from Petrov to accept Australian students.
North Korea analysts said there is also a pattern of Kim's regime detaining people or firing rockets to test wills when something big geopolitically is looming. The G20 meeting will be held in Japan this weekend.
"The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter, to the family of an Australian man who has been reported as being detained in North Korea," a spokesman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
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