When Yun finally laid eyes on the comatose Warmbier in a North Korean hospital, it was the first time the USA could verify his condition in person since his sentencing more than a year earlier, the State Department said.
Although U.S. citizens are not banned from visiting North Korea, the U.S. State Department strongly advises against it. Doctors said they have very limited information about Warmbier's condition before his arrival in the United States and have not had any contact with North Korean medical officials.
For Yun, a longtime Asia hand who joined the foreign service in 1985, the trip was the culmination of a series of delicate and rare conversations between the US and North Korean officials that transpired since President Donald Trump took office.
Doctors say the University of Virginia student is in a coma with severe injury to all regions of his brain.
"The despicable sanctions and pressure imposed on the DPRK by the USA and its vassal forces have reached the extreme", it said, using the acronym for the nation's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Warmbier is in stable condition at UC Medical Center, where he was taken Tuesday night after his arrival in Ohio.
North Korea is inviting Westerners to visit the isolated country to boost domestic tourism just days after sending one home with severe brain damage.
Trump was Rodman's boss when he appeared on the "Celebrity Apprentice" reality TV show. Yun demanded his release, the White House said.
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Former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman celebrated the end of a "really good" trip to North Korea that saw him give Kim Jong-un's ministers a copy of Donald Trump's bestseller The Art of The Deal.
It's unclear if Yun knew as he set off for North Korea that he'd be allowed to bring Warmbier home.
"A quick calculation shows that 15 (communist) party and government organs, 73 other firms and entities and about 90 individuals of the DPRK are now placed on the sanctions list, together with 16 airplanes and 20 trade cargo ships, but hardly any of them are associated with munitions area at all", the ministry said in the English-language statement carried by the official news agency KCNA. Warmbier opens his eyes and blinks spontaneously but shows no signs of understanding language or responding to verbal commands, said Dr. Daniel Kanter, professor of neurology and director of the Neurocritical Care Program.
The U.S. recently obtained intelligence reports suggesting that North Korean authorities repeatedly beat Warmbier while he was in custody, a senior American official told The New York Times.
During a press conference Thursday, Warmbier's father Fred Warmbier, praised the Trump administration for his son's release and had some harsh words for the Obama administration's lack of action.
The father of an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea and was returned to his home state of OH in a coma says the family is "adjusting to a different reality".
The father says that he and his wife, Cindy, only learned of their son's condition last week. The Swedes, who represent USA interests in North Korea, managed to visit him in March 2016, a few weeks before he was sentenced to 15 years hard labor. He was then taken by ambulance to a hospital.
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