The Foreign Ministry is trying to confirm reports that an alleged North Korean escapee has entered the South Korean consulate in Vladivostok.

Exodus 21, a Seoul-based organization that supports North Korean asylum-seekers, said Monday that the 29-year-old North Korean man, identified by his surname Hwang, requested asylum in South Korea after barging into the consulate on Monday.

According to the organization, Hwang had escaped from a North Korean intelligence officer's temporary housing facility in the Far Eastern Russian city, where he'd been working as an interpreter for a North Korean construction company since June 2000.

Hwang had reportedly been confined in the facility for defying a summons to return to Pyongyang last November.

If confirmed, it would be the second attempt by a North Korean defector to seek protection at a foreign mission in Vladivostok in the last three weeks.