More than two months after he illegally crossed the border into North Korea during a visit to the demilitarized zone in an attempted defection, American soldier Travis King is “in the hands” of the United States, an American official announced Wednesday, September 27. “I have good news to tell you. I can confirm that Private Travis King is in the custody of the United States,” he told journalists, on condition of anonymity.
Washington’s announcement came hours after North Korea’s state news agency KCNA said Pyongyang was preparing to expel the soldier. After completing its investigation, “the competent organ of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] decided to expel Travis King, a US Army soldier who illegally entered the territory of the DPRK”, she declared.
The 23-year-old soldier defected on July 18, after spending just two months in a South Korean prison. By crossing the border from South Korea to North Korea, he sought to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the US military,” KCNA said in August, confirming that the soldier was detained by Pyongyang.
He risked disciplinary sanctions in the United States
Travis King, private second class, was released from prison in South Korea following a brawl in a bar and an altercation with the country’s police. He was to return to the United States to face disciplinary sanctions. On July 18, he crossed the border, joining a group of tourists visiting the demilitarized zone separating the two countries.
He thus became the seventh American soldier to cross into North Korea. American officials had publicly expressed concern about the treatment to which he might have been subjected, while still others wondered about how he was able to fail the authorities at the Seoul airport. There followed intense diplomatic activity between Washington and Pyongyang, with the United States publicly assuring that it had no information about it.
The two Koreas have technically still been at war since 1953, because it was an armistice and not a peace treaty that ended the armed conflict. Fortifications abound on the border, but only a concrete wall separates the two countries at the level of the common security zone (JSA), which remains less difficult to cross despite the presence of soldiers. South Korea is a key ally of the United States and hosts some 27,000 American troops on its soil.