Written by Shin Hyunhye, Phil Stewart, and Idris Ali
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An American soldier facing disciplinary action who defected across the inter-Korean border into North Korea on Tuesday is believed to be in North Korean custody, U.S. officials said, causing a new crisis for Washington in its dealings with the nuclear-armed country.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed concern about the soldier, who USAK said had joined an orientation tour in the inter-Korean joint security area and “willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
The US Army has identified the soldier as Private Travis T. King, who joined in 2021.
“We’re still trying to learn a lot,” Austin told a news briefing. “We believe he is being held (in North Korea), so we are closely monitoring the situation, investigating it and working to notify the next of kin of the soldier,” he added.
The crossing comes at a time of high tensions on the Korean peninsula, with a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine arriving in South Korea on a rare visit in a warning to North Korea about its military activities.
North Korea has been testing increasingly powerful missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile launched last week. South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing the South Korean military, reported that it fired another ballistic missile into the sea near Japan on Tuesday.
Col. Isaac Taylor, a spokesman for US Forces Korea, said the military is “working with our counterparts in the Korean People’s Army to resolve this incident,” referring to the North Korean People’s Army.
White House spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre said US officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the United Nations are all working to “ascertain more information and resolve this situation.”
“We are in the early stages,” she said, adding that the main concern is determining the soldier’s well-being.
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
dash across borders
A US official said the soldier was on a civilian tour with a group of visitors to the truce village of Panmunjom when he crossed the border line. The Joint Security Area of the Demilitarized Zone has divided the two Koreas since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
But US officials puzzled over why the soldier fled to North Korea and outlined a series of puzzling events on Tuesday.
Two officials said King finished serving time in South Korea for an unspecified offense and was taken to the airport by the US military to return to his home unit in the US.
One of the officials said he had already gone through security alone to his gate and then decided to flee for whatever reason. The official added that civilian tours of the DMZ are advertised at the airport and King appears to have decided to join one.
Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the soldier was scheduled to face disciplinary action by the US military. One said he was not in detention when he decided to flee.
CBS News quoted a person who said they were part of the same tour group as saying that they had just visited one of the buildings at the site when “this guy makes a loud ‘hahahaha’ sound and walks between some buildings.”
Try a possible glitch
It was not clear how long the North Korean authorities would hold the soldier, but analysts said the incident could be valuable propaganda for the isolated country.
“Historically, the North would hold such people for weeks, if not months, for propaganda purposes (especially if it was a US soldier) before a coerced confession and apology,” said Victor Cha, a former US official and Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He added, “It also sometimes requires a US official or former official to travel there to obtain the release.” “Having high-ranking White House officials on the ground in Seoul….might speed that up, if the North is willing to talk to them.”
The arrest came as a high-level US delegation headed by White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific region Kurt Campbell was in Seoul for meetings with South Korean officials over North Korea’s nuclear program.
It’s significant that the soldier appears to have gone to North Korea voluntarily, said Jenny Town, director of 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea surveillance project.
“This is not a case of arrest, but whether North Korea will accept him as a defector. The last American who attempted to defect to North Korea has been denied and returned,” he said, referring to Arturo Pierre Martinez, from El Paso, Texas, who entered North Korea in 2014 and held a press conference there to denounce US policy.
Attempts to escape to isolated and authoritarian North Korea are extremely rare, although Americans have been held there in the past.
The US State Department requires US nationals not to enter North Korea “due to the continuing risk of arrest and prolonged detention for US citizens”.
