Merrill Newman returns home after being deported from North Korea.

‘I’m ready to be with my family’: The 85-year-old Korean War vet, who was detained in North Korea for about six weeks, was reunited with loved ones at San Francisco International Airport Saturday morning.

STEPHEN LAM/REUTERS

Merrill Newman spoke to reporters after he arrived back in the U.S. while his wife, Lee, and son Jeffery looked on.

An 85-year-old Korean War veteran held by North Korea for more than a month as a war criminal arrived in San Francisco on Saturday to be reunited with his family.

North Korea detained Merrill E. Newman for crimes it accused him of committing during the conflict six decades ago as a member of the U.S. special forces. He was released for humanitarian reasons after he apologized, the country’s state news agency said.

He flew to China, where he boarded an 11-and-a-half-hour flight home. His United Airlines airlines flight landed at about 9 a.m. (1700 GMT).

Newman looked to be in good health and held his wife’s hand before walking up to a podium to briefly address the press at the airport’s arrivals hall.

BEN MARGOT/AP

Merrill Newman was detained in North Korea at the end of a 10-day trip to the communist country, a visit that came six decades after he oversaw a group of South Korean wartime guerrillas during the 1950-53 war.

“I’m delighted … it’s been a great homecoming,” a smiling Newman told reporters. “I’m tired but I’m ready to be with my family.”

He was visiting North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and unpredictable states, as a tourist when he was pulled off an Air Koryo flight in Pyongyang minutes before it was due to depart for Beijing on October 26.

A senior Obama administration official said the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang had been “heroic” in its efforts to get to see Newman but he suggested it was ultimately a mystery why the North Koreans chose to release him.

The United States quickly welcomed North Korea’s decision to release Newman and called on Pyongyang to pardon another U.S. citizen being held since November last year and release him to his family.

Kenneth Bae, a Korean American who worked as a Christian missionary, was convicted by the North in May of crimes against the state. He has been serving a 15-year hard-labor sentence.