North Korea “investigates” the US soldier who crossed its border last month, according to state media in Pyongyangwho added that the soldier has requested asylum in the country after feeling mistreated in the United States Army.
“Travis King (name of US soldier) has confessed that he decided to come to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (official name of the country) because he harbored discomfort at the inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the united states armys”, said today in a note the state news agency KCNA.
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This is the first confirmation from the regime’s media about the situation of King, who crossed the Military Demarcation Line on July 18 and entered North Korean territory while on a tourist visit of the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the heart of the border between the two Koreas.
Pyongyang, however, was in contact with the United States about the situation of the soldier, who was believed to have been detained by the regime since he crossed the border, according to what the Pentagon and the United Nations Command in Korea had indicated, and as The North confirmed today.
Travis King “illegally entered the territory” of North Korea on the 18th and “remained under the control of North Korean soldiers” after having deliberately entered the North Korean zone on the other side of the military demarcation line, according to the KCNA.
He american soldier “expressed his wish to request asylum” in North Korea “or in a third country”, signaling his “disillusionment with the inequality in American society”, according to the propaganda outlet of Pyongyangwhich adds that the investigation into King “continues.”
The United States would be working to repatriate him
The Department’s priority is to bring Private King back home.
Washington, for its part, pointed out after learning of the announcement by the North Korean media about King that could not verify that informationand stated that he is still working to bring the soldier back to his country.
“The Department’s priority is to bring Private King home, and we are working through every channel possible to achieve that result,” a Defense Department official told CNN.
A spokesman for King’s family also called on the North Korean authorities to let the young man speak to his mother and treat him humanely.
North Korea says US soldier Travis King wants to stay because he’s unhappy with America’s “unequal society,” blames “racial discrimination” in the US Army pic.twitter.com/Xyd345bGy5
—BNO News (@BNONews) August 15, 2023
The Pentagon He had stated at the end of August that he had made no progress in contacts or possible negotiations with North Korea over the soldier, and that he did not know what condition he was in.
King, 23, crossed the border north after spending 48 days in a South Korean prison workshop for failing to pay a fine imposed on him in February for an incident involving the police in seoul
As a disciplinary measure, Washington He decided to repatriate him, but King fled from Incheon International Airport, where he was supposed to take a flight back to the United States, and the next day he booked a JSA sightseeing tour that he took the opportunity to cross to the North.
Possible bargaining chip?
Analysts have pointed out that North Korea could use the soldier for propaganda purposes or as a bargaining chip with Washington, in the context of a broken bilateral dialogue since 2019 and in the midst of an upturn in tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The North “has only revealed part of its investigation” into King’s alleged defection and “without reaching a conclusion,” which seems to mean to Washington “that it has the resolution of the matter in its hands,” Yang Moo-said. jin, of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told the Yonhap news agency.
The information published by Pyongyang It also comes a few days before the bilateral summit to be held in Washington by the leaders of JapanSouth Korea and the United States, and in which North Korea will be one of the central themes.
Next Monday, in addition, the joint annual exercises will begin Ulchi Freedom Shield between South Korea and the United States, criticized by Pionynag for considering them a test invasion of their territory.
EFE
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