‘I worry’ about ‘price’ to get soldier Travis King back from North Korea, McCaul says

King fled across the Demilitarized Zone last week, officials have said.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul said Sunday that he’s concerned North Korea will impose significant demands in order for the U.S. to retrieve Travis King, the American soldier who last week fled across the border from South Korea and is now presumably held by Pyongyang.

“The question is, was he defecting? I think it was more running from his problems,” McCaul, R-Texas, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, referencing King’s pending discipline in the U.S. after being held in South Korea following a local altercation.

“That was the wrong place to go. But we see this with Russia, China, Iran — when they take an American, particularly a soldier, captive, they exact a price for that,” McCaul said. “And that’s what I worry about.”

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