The command of United Nations in Korea began negotiations with Pyongyang on the 23-year-old American soldier Travis Kingarrested and detained in North Korea after entering it illegally. To declare it today in a briefing with the press is Andrew Harrisonthe number two of the command of the‘Him who oversees the truce between the two sides of the Peninsula: Harrison added that the “talks” are conducted with theKorean People’s Army through the mechanism of “armistice agreement” established in 1953 with the armistice of Korean War.
In recent days, North Korea – according to what was reported by a spokesman for the US State Department – had not responded to the attempts of the Pentagon to discuss the release of King. The soldier, a cavalry scout from the 1st Armored Division, had served nearly two months in one South Korean prison per aggression (he was responsible for a fight in a bar and an altercation with the police). Released July 10, a week later he was due to head to Fort Blissin Texaswhere he could have faced a further disciplinary evaluation and probable leave from service: instead he illegally evaded the military escort who was accompanying him to the airport, somehow managing to get out of the airport, and illegally entered North Korea during a sightseeing tour in the border village of Panmunjom, fleeing across the border.
It is still unclear whether King, believed to be the first American to enter North Korea illegally since 1982, wanted to to defect or not: the fact that it is one low-ranking recruit, according to some experts, would have little propaganda and intelligence value, so much so that it could induce Pyongyang to release him. King’s mother told ad Abc News that she was stunned when she learned that her son had crossed the border into North Korea: “I can’t see Travis doing such a thing,” she said Claudine Gates.