2023-08-02 03:56:10
The United States Department of Defense indicated this Tuesday, August 1, that North Korea has broken its silence and has responded to the United Nations Command, which tried to contact the North Korean authorities more than a week ago to try to recover the American soldier Travis King, who crossed the border voluntarily and without authorization.
A portrait of US soldier Travis King is displayed as his grandfather, Carl Gates, talks about his grandson Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. | Photo: 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
“I do not have any update on the status of Private King (…) The United Nations Command communicated through well-established channels through the Joint Security Agency. I can confirm that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has responded, but I don’t have any substantive progress to announce,” Ryder stated.
Ryder added that North Korea’s message to the United Nations Command has only been “an acknowledgment” of the existence of the investigation launched by that body, led by the United States.
King crossed the Military Demarcation Line as a civilian one day before his scheduled return to the United States, where he was to face disciplinary action for his misbehavior while deployed in South Korea, where he was eventually detained for several days.
Since then, nothing has been heard from King. US Army sources have said there were no indications the soldier was trying to defect and that he will be decommissioned once he lands on US soil.
The United Nations Command is a United States-led multinational military force that fought on the side of South Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953). It controls the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area, the only place where Pyongyang and Seoul can meet to negotiate.
Photo of US soldier, Travis King, at an unknown location. | Photo: Archyde.com
What does the soldier’s family say?
The family of the US Army private said they may have been overwhelmed by the legal issues he was facing and his possible discharge from the military.
Now his family is having trouble understanding what changed before he fled to a country with a long history of holding Americans captive and using them as bargaining chips. “I can’t imagine him intentionally doing that in his right mind,” King’s maternal grandfather, Carl Gates, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his home in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
UPDATED CAPTION: A group of tourists stands near a border station at Panmunjom in the Paju Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Not long after this photo was taken, Travis King, a soldier An American, pictured in a dark blue shirt and dark cap, fourth from the left, crossed the border and became the first American detained in the North in nearly five years. (AP Photo/Sarah Jane Leslie) | Photo: 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
King was scheduled to return to the United States this week to face military discipline after spending two months in a South Korean prison on assault charges. But instead of boarding a plane Monday for Texas, as planned, King slipped away Tuesday morning and surreptitiously joined a group of civilian tourists headed for the demilitarized zone separating North Korea from South Korea.
In February, a court fined King 5 million won ($3,950) after he was convicted of assaulting an unidentified person and damaging a police vehicle in October in Seoul, according to the verdict transcript provided to the AP. had access.
*With information from Europa Press and AP.
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