A US service member has voluntarily crossed the demilitarized zone (DMZ) into North Korea – reportedly while facing disciplinary proceedings back home – creating another crisis on the peninsula for Washington amid rising nuclear tensions with Pyongyang.
The unidentified soldier was on an orientation tour of the Joint Security Area at the Panmunjom truce village when he bolted across the demarcation line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). “We believe he is currently in DPRK and are working with our KPA (Korean People’s Army) counterparts to resolve this incident,” said the United Nations Command, which oversees the demilitarized border area.
US military officials told media outlets that the soldier “willfully and without authorization” crossed into North Korea. CBS News reported that the service member was being escorted back to the US for disciplinary reasons and had gone through airport security when he somehow absconded and joined the border tour group.
A South Korean media report identified the soldier as Travis King, a US Army private second class. A witness in the tour group told CBS that while visiting the Joint Security Area, “this man gives out a loud ‘ha, ha, ha’ and just runs in between some buildings” into North Korea. “I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didn’t come back, I realized it wasn’t a joke, and then everyone reacted and things got crazy.”
The incident marks the first such border crossing by an American soldier in nearly five years. It comes at a time when Pyongyang and Washington are feuding over alleged provocations on both sides, including missile tests by North Korea and large-scale joint exercises by the US and South Korean militaries.
The USS Kentucky docked in Busan on Tuesday, the first port call on the peninsula by a US nuclear submarine in four decades. Kim Yo-jong, North Korea’s foreign policy chief and sister of leader Kim Jong-un, claimed on Monday that Washington had escalated tensions to the point that “the possibility of an actual armed conflict and even the outbreak of a nuclear war is debated.”