A spokesperson of South Korea’s Hyundai Group said that the company’s chief left for Pyongyang on Monday to seek the release of an employee who has been detained in North Korea for more than four months.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Hyundai Group Chief Hyun Jung-eun left for Pyongyang over the inter-Korean demilitarized zone at 1:50 p.m. local time.

Kim Ha-young, Hyundai’s spokesperson, said that details of Hyun’s trip were not yet available, including how long she would stay in the country or whether she would have meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Hyun is known to have requested the South Korean government to approve of her three-day visit to Pyongyang.

Hyun’s visit came days after North Korea released two US journalists it has detained for months for illegally crossing the border into the nation.

North Korean authorities detained the Hyundai employee, who was only identified by his surname Yu, for allegedly denouncing the north’s regime. He has been working for years in the inter-Korean joint industrial complex located at Kaesong, North Korea.

(via Xinhua)