2023-07-19 21:02:53
This is a new sensitive file that Joe Biden would have done well without. US soldier Travis King is believed to be detained in North Korea on Wednesday after crossing the border on a tourist trip to the demilitarized zone (DMZ).
The United Nations Command, which is provided by the United States, announced that it was working with the North Korean army to “address this incident”. But given the state of relations between Pyongyang and Washington, at one of their lowest in years, it is unclear what will happen next.
What happened
Private Travis King was on a tour of the DMZ in the village of Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed in July 1953 that ended the fighting in the Korean War.
Shouting “ha ha ha!” “, According to an eyewitness, he fled and crossed the North Korean border, “voluntarily and without authorization”, underlined American officials. According to witnesses quoted by the American media, he “sprinted” and could not be caught by the American and South Korean soldiers who supervised the trip.
Travis King was being escorted home to the US for disciplinary reasons but managed to leave the airport and join a tour group, US media reported.
While most of the border between the two Koreas is fortified, at Panmunjom, where the Joint Security Area (JSA) is located, the border is marked only by a low concrete structure and is relatively easy to cross, despite the deployment of soldiers on both sides.
These have been unarmed since a 2018 agreement and the North has significantly reduced its presence in the JSA since the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, under armistice protocols, South Korean personnel or Americans could not cross the border to pick up Travis King and he is now believed to be held by North Korea.
Why did he do it?
Police and media said the soldier had repeated run-ins with the law while in South Korea, a key US ally that hosts some 27,000 US service members. He was released on July 10 after spending two months in prison for assault.
His mother said she was shocked to learn that her son had traveled to the communist north, which is nuclear-armed and has no official diplomatic relations with its “sworn enemy”, the United States.
“I don’t see Travis doing such a thing,” Claudine Gates reacted on ABC News television, adding that she had last heard from him a few days earlier when he told her he was returning to its base at Fort Bliss. She confided that she just wanted “he to come home”.
Former South Korean national security official Choi Gi-il told AFP that it seemed to him that Travis King had acted “on impulse”. This “caught the United States completely off guard.”
What does North Korea think?
Pyongyang has repeatedly detained Americans and used them as bargaining chips. “The North could see this situation as something it can leverage in its relationship with Washington amid ongoing tensions,” Choi predicted.
One of the last Americans to be in the hands of North Korea was Otto Warmbier, who was eventually handed over to the United States after being held prisoner for a year and a half. In a coma at the time of his release, this student died six days later.
Such a case “indicates that the North could manage this problem in the long term rather than taking immediate measures, waiting to see how the United States will respond to it”, judged Choi Gi-il.
Why is this a problem for the United States?
The United States now “faces a dilemma between protecting its citizens and strengthening broad deterrence against North Korea,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies. Seoul. “Given the current turbulent relationship between the United States and North Korea, achieving a meaningful outcome to address this issue is expected to take considerable time.”
Washington could turn to China – North Korea’s main trading partner – for mediation, which could “have a positive impact” in the face of the “ongoing US-China conflict”, he continued.
And after ?
Travis King “has some propaganda value for North Koreans,” noted Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korean studies at the University of Oslo. However, after questioning him, North Korea may realize that this soldier lacks the personality and motivation to be an effective propagandist, he said. In which case, Pyongyang “will try to ‘sell’ it to the United States”. “It’s an important bargaining chip,” he told AFP.
North Korea has yet to reopen its borders after sealing them at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This, added to the fact that Travis King appears to have gone to North Korea to escape his troubles with the law and not because of romantic ideas about the Pyongyang regime, means that “it is likely that the North will deport him”. “, Estimated with AFP Cheong Seong-chang, the director of the Center for North Korean studies at the Sejong Institute.
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