I lay out some precedents of N. Korea's "hostage-diplomacy-and-release" at times of its calculated escalation. Each time, the release entails a cost, political or monetary–or both. Congrats to @TheMessenger for the exclusives on the Travis King case. https://t.co/ScTYG7PZnn
I wonder if Private King now wishes he got on the aircraft last week?:
State Department Press Secretary Matthew Miller is seen answering questions during a daily press briefing at the department in Washington on July 24, 2023 in this captured image. (Yonhap)
The United States has not had any substantive response from North Korea about the safety of a U.S. service member who crossed the inter-Korean border into the reclusive state last week, a state department spokesperson said Monday.
Matthew Miller also said the North has not responded to any requests, including those from United Nations Command (UNC), to confirm the whereabouts or well-being of the U.S. soldier.
“It is my understanding that there have been no new communication since last week. communications that happened in the early days,” the department spokesperson told a daily press briefing when asked if there has been any communication with North Korea.
You can read more at the link, but King will be used as a bargaining chip at some point when North Korea needs to use him. They just don’t need to play that card yet.
North Korea appears to be launching an offensive on the fish of the East Sea as they fire two more ballistic missiles:
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the East Sea late Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
“Our military detected two ballistic missiles North Korea fired from areas near Pyongyang into the East Sea at 11:55 p.m. on the 24th and at midnight of the 25th,” it said.
Both missiles flew about 400 kilometers before falling into the sea, it added.
The military is still analyzing the North’s latest missile launch to determine the exact type of the missiles fired, according to the JCS.
The Messenger got access to the Serious Incident Report (SIR) that was filed for the defection of PV2 Travis King. It shows that how the United Nations Command vets people taking the DMZ tours is clearly broken:
When King arrived for his tour of the demilitarized zone the following day, he checked in with a U.S. government identification card. The tour company submitted the list of participants in the tour to the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission, the international body which supervises the armistice between the two Koreas. King had been placed on an international hold by U.S. and South Korean authorities owing to his disciplinary exhibits, and it’s not clear why he was not flagged prior to taking the tour.
United Nations Command approved the manifest submitted to them by Hana Tours ITC.
What is most interesting from this report is apparently the North Koreans had a van waiting for King that he ran into after he crossed the border:
The tour began around 2:30 p.m. at Camp Boniface, a military post of the United Nations Command, just south of the southern boundary of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the report details. Roughly an hour later at 3:30 p.m., King walked away from his group and sprinted through a space between U.S. and South Korean troops.
Security Forces chased King as he ran to the far end of what’s known as conference row, the bright blue buildings in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. The Army private then ran north to Panmungak.
The report says King ran to the back of a Korean People’s Army building where he entered a van and was driven out of the area by North Korean troops. (……..)
A U.S. military official familiar with the investigation told The Messenger the U.S. military is looking into the possibility that the North Koreans had prior knowledge of his intention to cross the border. The U.S. military official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations.
You can read more at the link, but King likely had this defection planned out. However, I don’t think he was smart enough to find a way to contact the North Koreans to actually coordinate his defection. It will be interesting to see what the investigation determines.
It looks like either PV2 King is a bad drunk or has some serious anger management issues. Considering he deliberately planned his defection to North Korea I think he has some mental and anger management issues:
Seoul police arrested King just before 4 a.m. on Oct. 8 in Mapo and placed him in the backseat of a squad car, according to records from Seoul Western District Court. He refused to answer questions, kicked the car’s doors and ranted: “F— Korean, f— Korean Army, f— Korean police.”
The court records redact the names of victims and the defendant; however, a court official on Tuesday confirmed by phone that King was the defendant in the case.
He was also fined about $3,950 and paid roughly $790 for damage to the police car, the records state.
King joined the Army in January 2021 and was a cavalry scout administratively assigned to the 4th Infantry Division in South Korea, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryce Dubee.
King was also accused of assault on Sept. 25, according to court records. Seoul police say he pushed and punched a fellow customer at a Mapo bar who refused to buy King a drink, records state.
Here is what we know about Travis King, the U.S. Soldier who ran across the DMZ to North Korea laughing earlier this week:
Officials say Pvt. 2nd Class King has been a cavalry scout with the U.S. Army since January 2021.
The 23-year-old had been stationed in South Korea, but had recently served two months in a prison there on charges of assault, the Associated Press reported.
Several South Korean media outlets report that King had punched a South Korean national in a club last September. He had also been fined 5 million won ($3,942) for causing public damage and being uncooperative with police during his arrest.
According to an accountfrom the Chosun Ilbo newspaper,citing legal sources, King yelled obscenities at South Korean police as he kicked the doors and interior of a police vehicle.
Before bolting into North Korea, King was being escorted to an airport outside of Seoul where he was expected to board a plane bound for Fort Bliss, Texas, to face military disciplinary action.
Officials escorted him through airport security, but King somehow managed to ditch the escort and make his way out of the terminal and back to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
That is where officials said King, who was dressed in civilian clothes, joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom.
You can read more at the link, but King had to have planned this out because here are the rules for going on a tour of Panmunjom on the DMZ:
According to the UNC rules the roster of the tourists to Panmunjum should be reported 48 hours (2 days) prior to the tour briefing time (13:45) in the camp Bonifas on the tour day. So person who is interested in this tour should send your name, passport number and nationality to us at least 3 days before.
The fact he claimed that he lost his passport to not board his flight is further evidence of how planned this was:
On Monday, the American solider was escorted by military police from Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, to Incheon International Airport. The solider then went through a security checkpoint alone because the military police officers were not allowed to accompany him.
King arrived at the boarding gate, but did not board the plane.
“At the gate, he approached an American Airlines official and reported that his passport was missing, and was able to return out of the departure gate under the escort of an airline employee,” an official at Incheon International Airport told The Korea Times, adding that King appears to have lied about his missing passport.
Once a passenger goes through the customs and immigration checkpoint at Incheon airport, he or she cannot go back to the terminal without a valid reason approved by an authorized personnel.
So this was clearly not a drunken spur of the moment type of defection like we saw decades ago with Charles Robert Jenkins. King had this planned out at least three days in advance. The closest defection to this I can think of is PFC Joseph White who defected in 1982 likely because he was forbidden by his unit leadership from meeting his Korean girlfriend. So he got pissed off and crossed the DMZ into North Korea. In 1985 North Korea reported that White died in a river drowning. Will a similar fate await King?
An American soldier facing military disciplinary actions fled across the heavily armed border from South Korea into North Korea, U.S. officials said Tuesday, becoming the first American detained in the North in nearly five years.
Two U.S. officials said the soldier detained was Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, who had just been released from a South Korean prison where he’d been held on assault charges and was facing additional military disciplinary actions in the United States.
King, who’s in his early 20s, was escorted to the airport to be returned to Fort Bliss, Texas, but instead of getting on the plane he left and joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom, where he ran across the border.
At a Pentagon press conference Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not name King, but confirmed that a U.S. service member was likely now in North Korean custody.
You can read more at the link, but I wonder if Pvt. King is already regretting his decision? Did he not do a simple Google search to see what North Koreans due to American detainees such as Otto Warmbier who retuned home beaten and brain dead? What a headache for whoever his commander is.
For once I actually agree with Kim Yo-jong that anyone that thinks they will willingly give up their nuclear weapons is delusional:
The powerful sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned Monday that it would be “delusional” for the United States to believe that Pyongyang’s disarmament was possible.
Kim Yo-jong criticized Washington’s policies of strengthening its extended deterrence and military alliance with South Korea, stating that such actions would only make it difficult for Pyongyang to engage in dialogue, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“The U.S. is being delusional if it believes that it could halt our advancement and further achieve irreversible disarmament by temporarily halting joint military drills, suspending the deployment of strategic assets or reversibly easing sanctions etc,” Kim said.
Kim also rejected U.S. calls for unconditional talks, dismissing them as a ploy to hinder North Korea’s progress.
