N.Korea confirms American soldier's presence, seeks refuge due to "ill-treatment"

SEOUL: North Korea confirmed publicly for the first time that 7. Travis King crossed into its territory.

A statement from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday claimed that Travis King had expressed “his willingness to seek refuge” in North Korea or a third country. It also claimed King confessed that he had decided to enter North Korea as “he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army.” United State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the US has no updates regarding Travis King yet.

"I have no updates... What I will say is, though, that we remain focused on his safe return. And our priority is to bring Private King home, and we are working through all available channels to achieve that outcome. And his well-being continues to be a top priority for us as well as his safety," Vedant Patel said.

"We retain a number of channels through which we’re able to send messages and communicate to the DPRK. Sweden serves as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK, and we’re working in close contact with our Swedish counterparts on this case," Patel added.

King crossed the military demarcation line from South Korea into North Korea in July during a tour of the Joint Security Area inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ). King, a junior enlisted soldier assigned to US Forces Korea, had faced assault charges in South Korea and was due to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, and be removed from the military just one day before he crossed into North Korea, CNN previously reported.

KCNA, a North Korean news agency reported that he had admitted “illegally” intruding into the territory of North Korea and said that the investigation is ongoing.

US defence officials have said publicly that King “willfully and without authorization” crossed into North Korea while taking a civilian tour of the DMZ.

Just over a week before making his dash across the border, King was released from a detention facility in South Korea, where he had served 50 days doing labour, defence officials told CNN.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told the Aspen Security Forum last month that King “absolutely would have faced additional consequences” from the US Army for his conduct in South Korea if he’d returned as planned.

“He had assaulted an individual in South Korea and had been in the custody of the South Korean government and was going to come back to the United States to face the consequences in the Army,” Wormuth said.

“And I’m sure that he was grappling with that," she added.

King’s family told CNN earlier this month that they had no reason to believe he would defect from the US military.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has been debating whether to designate King as a prisoner of war, which could afford him greater protections under the Geneva Convention, defence officials told CNN.

No final decision has been made, officials said, and, as of now, King’s status is still AWOL (absent without leave).

King could potentially qualify for POW status since the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, meaning the US and North Korea are still technically at war. And the Geneva Convention provides strict guidelines to signatories about how a prisoner of war must be treated while in captivity. The US and North Korea are both signatories, CNN reported.

But officials have repeatedly emphasized that King was seized by the North Koreans after crossing into the country of his own volition, while dressed as a civilian and on a private tour of the demilitarized zone, not as part of any active fighting between the US and North Korean militaries.