North Korea Stays Silent On Apparent Detention Of U.S. Soldier Who Bolted Across Border

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday was silent about the highly unusual entry of an American soldier across the Koreas’ heavily fortified border as some observers say North Korea is unlikely to repatriate him anytime soon amid heightened animosities between the former wartime foes.

A day after the soldier bolted into North Korea during a tour in the border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday, there was no word on the fate of Private 2nd Class Travis King, the first known American detained in the North in nearly five years. Earlier Wednesday, North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in an apparent protest at the deployment of a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea the previous day.

“It’s likely that North Korea will use the soldier for propaganda purposes in the short term and then as a bargaining chip in the mid- to long term,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.

King, 23, was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was released on July 10 and was being sent home Monday to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.

He was escorted as far as customs but left the airport before boarding his plane. It wasn’t clear how he spent the hours until joining the Panmunjom tour and running across the border Tuesday afternoon. The Army released his name and limited information after King’s family was notified. But a number of U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, provided additional details.

A banner advertising a DMZ tour is attached at a tourist bus at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, on July 19, 2023.

King’s mother told ABC News she was shocked when she heard her son had crossed into North Korea.

“I can’t see Travis doing anything like that,” Claudine Gates, of Racine, Wisconsin, said.

Gates said the Army told her on Tuesday morning about her son’s entrance into North Korea. She said she last heard from her son “a few days ago,” when he told her he would return soon to Fort Bliss. She added she just wanted “him to come home.”

King faced at least two other assault-related allegations in South Korea.

In February, a court fined him 5 million won ($3,950) after being convicted of assaulting an unidentified person and damaging a police vehicle in Seoul last October, according to a transcript of the verdict obtained by The Associated Press.

The ruling said King had also been accused of punching a 23-year-old man at a Seoul nightclub, though the court dismissed that charge because the victim didn’t want King to be punished.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the U.S. government was working with its North Korean counterparts to “resolve this incident.” The American-led U.N. Command said Tuesday the U.S. soldier was believed to be in North Korean custody.

“We’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Pentagon news conference, noting he was foremost concerned about the soldier’s well-being. “This will develop in the next several days and hours, and we’ll keep you posted.”

It wasn’t known whether and how the U.S. and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, would hold talks. In the past, Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, provided consular services for other Americans detained in North Korea. But Swedish diplomatic staff reportedly haven’t returned to North Korea since the country imposed a COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 and ordered all foreigners to leave.

Tourists take pictures of prayer ribbons wishing for reunification of the two Koreas on the wire fence at the Imjingak Pavilion, near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on July 19, 2023, in Paju, South Korea.

Chung Sung-Jun via Getty Images

Some observers say North Korea and the U.S. could still communicate via Panmunjom or the North Korean mission at the U.N. in New York.

Cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare, though more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tae Yongho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, said North Korea is likely pleased to have “an opportunity to get the U.S. to lose its face” because King’s crossing happened on the same day the U.S. submarine arrived in South Korea. Tae, now a South Korean lawmaker, said North Korea won’t likely return King because he is a soldier from a nation technically at war with North Korea who voluntarily surrendered to the North.

The United States and North Korea are still officially at war because the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The U.S. still stations about 28,000 troops in South Korea. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula run high as North Korea has carried out a barrage of missile tests, while the U.S. has responded by expanding its military drills with South Korea.

Panmunjom, located inside the 248-kilometer-long (154-mile) Demilitarized Zone, has been jointly overseen by the U.N. Command and North Korea since its creation at the close of the Korean War. Bloodshed has occasionally occurred there, but it has also been a venue for diplomacy and tourism.

Known for its blue huts straddling concrete slabs that form the demarcation line, Panmunjom draws visitors from both sides who want to see the Cold War’s last frontier. No civilians live at Panmunjom. North and South Korean soldiers face off while tourists on both sides snap photographs.

A small number of U.S. soldiers went to North Korea during the Cold War, including Charles Jenkins, who deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965 and fled across the DMZ. He appeared in North Korean propaganda films and married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted from Japan by North Korean agents. Jenkins died in Japan in 2017.

In recent years, some American civilians have been arrested in North Korea for alleged espionage, subversion and other anti-state acts, but were released after the U.S. sent high-profile missions to secure their freedom.

In May 2018, North Korea released three American detainees who returned to the United States on a plane with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a short period of warm relations. Later in 2018, North Korea said it expelled American Bruce Byron Lowrance. Since his deportation, there have been no reports of other Americans detained in North Korea before Tuesday’s incident.

Their freedoms were a striking contrast to the fate of Otto Warmbier, an American university student who died in 2017 days after he was released by North Korea in a coma after 17 months in captivity.

The United States, South Korea and others have accused North Korea of using foreign detainees to wrest diplomatic concessions. Some foreigners have said after their release that their declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

Sean Timmons, a managing partner at the Tully Rinckey law firm, which specializes in military legal cases, said if King is trying to present himself as a legitimate defector fleeing either political oppression or persecution, he would be dependent on North Korea’s leadership to decide if he can stay.

He said it will likely be up to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to decide King’s fate.

“It’s going to be up to the whims of their leadership, what they want to do,” Timmons said.

Copp reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.