Tag: North Korea

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 account from 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.

CBS News reports that King was released to U.S. officials at the military hub in the country about a week ago.

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.

NPR

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.

KoreaDMZtour.com

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. 

Korea Times

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?

Did not expect to ever see another Charles Robert Jenkins wannabe, but it has happened:

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.

Stars & Stripes

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.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans used the excuse of regularly scheduled US intelligence flights as their excuse for firing an ICBM when the real reason they fired it is because they are likely upset about President Yoon attending the NATO summit:

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the East Sea on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, after the recalcitrant regime warned of military action over U.S. spy aircraft operations earlier this week.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from an area in or around Pyongyang at about 10 a.m., and the missile, fired at a lofted angle, flew around 1,000 kilometers before splashing into the water.

The North’s first ICBM launch in about three months came amid tensions heightened by Pyongyang’s tough rhetoric against the United States, a move seen as aimed at firming up internal unity and building a rationale for provocations.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This should not be surprising that the North Koreans are making bold threats they likely won’t or can’t carry out:

Anchor: The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued another warning just several hours after claiming that a U.S. military reconnaissance plane repeatedly violated the North’s airspace. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, on its part, urged Pyongyang to put a stop to such false claims that heighten military tensions.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.

Report: Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North’s leader, warned on Tuesday that U.S. forces will face a “very critical flight” if they continue with what she termed an “illegal intrusion.”

She issued the warning in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) as she said that she will act “upon authorization” if a U.S. spy plane again violates the North’s exclusive economic zone(EEZ).

The warning came just nine hours after Kim accused a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft of intruding into the zone over waters east of Tongchon of Kangwon Province and waters southeast of Uljin County in North Gyeongsang Province between 5:15 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Monday.

In a separate statement issued under the name of the defense ministry spokesperson, the reclusive state repeated Kim’s claims and warned that it can shoot down U.S. planes.

KBS World

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what made up airspace boundaries Kim Yo-jong is claiming this aircraft violated?:

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Monday claimed US reconnaissance aircraft intruded in the country’s airspace.

Kim issued a statement alleging that a US spy aircraft intruded in the North’s eastern airspace twice at around 5 a.m. and 8:50 a.m., respectively, on the same day.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, she said the US is “engaging in a serious military provocation by conducting aerial surveillance.”

Kim Yo-jong added that the North will not respond directly to the US reconnaissance activities outside of the country’s exclusive economic zone, but warned that it will take “decisive action” if the US military again crosses its maritime military demarcation line.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s military rejected the North’s claim of its airspace being violated as “not true” and described flights by US aerial surveillance assets around the peninsula as part of regular surveillance activities.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

The ROK has concluded that the North Koreans were trying to conduct a legitimate space launch with their rocket that crashed in the ocean back in May:

The salvaged wreckage of a North Korean space rocket is displayed on the deck of the ROKS Gwangyang at the Navy’s Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, on June 16, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

South Korea has retrieved a North Korean spy satellite wreckage and concluded it has “no military utility,” Seoul’s military said Wednesday, ending a 36-day operation to salvage the sunken debris of a failed North Korean space rocket launch in late May.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the military raised multiple key parts of the rocket and the satellite through the operation that began May 31 and ended earlier in the day.

South Korean and U.S. experts have conducted a detailed analysis of the wreckage and found that the salvaged satellite debris has no military utility, the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.