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North Korea he is not answering to inquiries by US officials about Travis King, the US soldier who crossed the border into South Korea last week and entered North Korea illegally, where he is believed to have been arrested. The North Korean authorities have not spoken publicly about the case, while those of the United States have said that so far the North Korean regime has ignored any requests to know how King is and whereabouts. While communications have been initiated with the United Nations, it is currently unclear whether North Korea’s stance is cooperative.
King is 23 years old and last Tuesday he entered North Korea without authorization, crossing the border line that separates the country from South Korea in the Joint Security Area, the only point where the armies of the two Koreas are in direct contact. The Joint Security Area is located in the Demilitarized Zone, a four kilometer wide strip of land that stretches along the entire border between the two countries. King was due to return to the United States a week after being released from a South Korean prison, where he had served a nearly two-month sentence on assault charges: he had actually walked out of the airport where he was escorted and then joined one of the guided tours in the Joint Security Area.
According to some witnesses, during the tour he would have started running towards the border line. Presumably he was then arrested by the armed forces of North Korea, a dictatorship in which unauthorized intrusions like this are not tolerated.
A US official quoted by the Wall Street Journal he said that the US authorities sent North Korea messages “through multiple channels” to communicate that King had crossed the border alone and that the US government wanted him to return “quickly and safely”. The official, quoted anonymously, said the United States knows the messages were received, but that North Korea has never responded, without adding other details.
Similar contacts have also been attempted through Sweden, one of the few countries to have an embassy in North Korea, and through the United Nations command, which operates within the Demilitarized Zone and Joint Security Area to ensure compliance with the armistice that ended the war between the two Koreas in 1953.
At a press conference on Monday, British General Andrew Harrison, deputy command officer, he said that the United Nations has started communications with North Korea. Due to the complexity of the situation Harrison refused to provide details, to clarify how many times there were contacts and to specify whether North Korea is responding constructively. It is not even clear whether Harrison is referring to new communications or to those that occurred in the first days after King had crossed the border, when the United Nations had said it was working to “solve the incident”.
Matt Miller, spokesman for the US State Department, said he was not aware of any new communications between the United Nations and North Korea, other than those immediately following the soldier’s entry into the country.