Update at 1130 KST: This article has been updated to reflect further developments in the story.

A North Korean soldier detected crossing the inter-Korean border just before midnight on Wednesday has expressed a desire to defect to South Korea, an official from Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Thursday.

A JCS statement earlier in the day reported an unidentified hotspot was detected moving south across the Imjin River south of the military demarcation line (MDL) at 23:38 by a thermal observation device (TOD).

A single individual was then identified at 23:56, the statement said, leading the military to