SEOUL, South Korea: Pyongyang has claimed that US soldier Travis King defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the US Army”, KCNA, the state news agency of North Korea said Wednesday.
Pyongyang’s statement comes as the first official confirmation that they are holding the American soldier. A private second class with an uneven disciplinary record, King was due to fly back to the US in July but instead slipped out of the airport, joined a tourist trip to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and ran across the border into the North.
The US had previously said that its soldier King crossed the border intentionally and without authorisation, while Pyongyang said Wednesday that King “admitted that he illegally intruded”, the Korean Central News Agency of North Korea reported.
“Travis King confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army,” KCNA added.
King “came to be kept under control by soldiers of the Korean People’s Army” after he crossed the border, KCNA said.
“He also expressed his willingness to seek refuge in the DPRK or a third country, saying that he was disillusioned at the unequal American society,” KCNA said, adding that a government investigation was still ongoing.
The UN Command, which oversees the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, confirmed last month it had begun a conversation with the North over King.
But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the time that while contact had been made with the North Koreans, Washington still had no idea where the US soldier was or in what condition. —AFP/APP
