US solider says he wants to stay in North Korea after illegally crossing border
North Korea has said US soldier Travis King ran over the border into the rogue state last month because he was "disillusioned at the unequal American society."
The communist country under the leader of dictator Kim Jong Un acknowledged they had custody of King, 23, earlier this month. Pyongyang has since said King has "expressed willingness" for refuge because he "harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army.”
North Korea says an investigation into King would continue. It is the country's first public comment on King since the Wisconsin native left South Korea.
The private second class had previously served nearly two months in a South Korean prison and was due to fly home for further disciplinary measures before he escaped across the demilitarized border (DMZ).
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin previously confirmed the crossing was deliberate and that he was concerned at the situation. Secretary Austin said: "One of our service members who was on a tour wilfully and without authorisation crossed the demarcation line. He is in custody.
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King, a reconnaissance specialist, had been in South Korea since 2021. His decision to sprint across the border appears to have troubled and baffled his family.
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A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea (AP)King’s maternal grandfather, Carl Gates said the solider must not have been in his "right mind." "Travis is a good guy," he said. "He wouldn’t do nothing to hurt nobody. And I can’t see him trying to hurt himself.”
“I don’t understand why he would do that, because it seemed like he was on his way back here to the United States,” his uncle Myron Gates said. “He was on his way home."
A defence official told CNN there was no indication the soldier was planning to defect and he was not escorted to the airport because he was no longer in custody. It appears he made the crossing while part of a tourist tour to the Joint Security Area (JSA), the only point of the DMZ where soldiers from North and South Korea stand face to face.
A witness told broadcaster CBS News that King ran away from the tour laughing as he did so, leading others on the civilian tour group to believe he was joking. "This man gives out a loud 'ha ha ha,' and just runs in between some buildings," they said.
Relations between the US and North Korea are at an all-time low, a number of experts have said (AP)At the time of the alleged defection, Dr Edward Howell, a Korean peninsula expert at the University of Oxford, told the Mirror the "context of the US soldier’s detention could not be worse."
Relations, Dr Howell said, are at a "nadir" while "Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capabilities are accelerating."
Last month, the US demonstrated a show of force by deploying a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea first time in four decades.
The USS Kentucky is an Ohio-class submarine which can twenty-four Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). South Korea Defence Minister Lee Jong-Sup said the submarine was there for "extended deterrence," but these commitments have been roundly rejected by communist North Korea.
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Alluding to developments last month week, Dr Howell said: "Pyongyang’s hostility towards the US, therefore, is anything but abating. The soldier’s defection places the Biden administration under immense pressure, as Biden has sought to strengthen his alliance with South Korea (and vice versa).
"Crucially, the Kim regime now has leverage: firstly, to make North Korea a priority item for the Biden administration; secondly, and relatedly, for Kim to try and gain some of his demands met, not least recognition as a de facto nuclear state."
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