Pyongyang remains mum regarding US soldier’s detention

SEOUL: North Korea remained silent Wednesday about the detention of an American soldier who ran across Korea’s strongly defended border as his tour group watched in shock. Due to rising tensions, the North was unlikely to repatriate him soon.

On Tuesday, Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King ran into North Korea while touring the Demilitarised Zone. He was scheduled to exit the nation and travel to a US post.King, who had been imprisoned in South Korea before, was released this month. The US could have punished him more.

King is the first American detained in North Korea in five years. Each imprisonment has complicated diplomatic fighting, and this one comes at a moment of heightened enmity. North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea on Wednesday in apparent protest of the first US nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea in decades.

“North Korea will use the soldier for propaganda in the short term and as a bargaining chip in the mid-to-long term,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.

King, 23, a 1st Armoured Division cavalry scout, served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was discharged on July 10 and was due to travel Monday for Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced more military discipline and discharge.

He fled the airport after customs. He joined the Panmunjom tour Tuesday afternoon and ran across the border. After notifying King’s family, the Army disclosed his identity and limited details. However, several US officials, speaking anonymously due to the delicacy of the topic, offered more specifics.

One woman on King’s tour said she thought his dash was a ruse and that she and others couldn’t believe what transpired. South Korea has already imprisoned King.