US-led security forces in the region announced Monday that a “dialogue” had begun with North Korea over US Army Private Travis King, who disappeared into the north beyond the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the closed country and its southern neighbor on Tuesday, according to media reports.
The deputy commander of the United Nations Command (UNC), General Andrew Harrison, declined to provide further details about his private life as an investigation is ongoing after he announced that U.S. troops had entered North Korea “intentionally and without authorization,” CNN reported. report. It is the first time that the United States or a partner country has been able to confirm private contact with North Korea since Dr. King ran through the Joint Security Area (JSA) toward North Korea.
“Under the armistice, there is an open line of communication between the UN forces and the Korean People’s Army, and there is a mechanism for that to happen within the JSA. That process has begun,” Harrison told reporters in Seoul, CNN reported.
According to CNN, he said, “Obviously there are so many welfares at stake and we are in a very difficult and complicated situation and we don’t want to risk it by elaborating too much on speculation and existing communications.”
The Pentagon said on Thursday that despite attempts to contact the government through multiple classified channels, no one in the outside world had heard from North Korean officials and was unsure if the message had penetrated the closed country. (Related: Kim Jong-un’s sister says US spy plane fled after North Korea scrambled jets)
“We want to bring him home.
King had planned to return to his hometown in the United States from South Korea for disciplinary action, but he slipped out of the airport and joined a private tour group to cross the highly secured border between North and South Korea, bolting across the border. The JSA is a collection of buildings within the desolate demilitarized zone miles wide that has divided North and South Korea since the 1953 armistice.
Witnesses say they saw King being put into a van by North Korean soldiers and driven away, CNN reportsaid, citing a US official.
A U.S. official told CNN that he is being held in a South Korean jail on charges related to a history of assault and will face administrative separation when he returns to Fort Bliss, Texas.
“There are limits to what you can say,” Harrison told reporters, according to CNN. “We may never get the answer.”
U.S. Private Travis T. King (wearing a black shirt and black hat) is photographed while inspecting the closely controlled Joint Security Area (JSA) on the North-South border at the Armistice Village in Panmunjom, South Korea, July 18, 2023. Sarah Leslie/Handout (Reuters)
The United States has no formal diplomatic ties with North Korea and relies on classified communications and international interlocutors such as Sweden to engage with the communist state. That leaves the United Nations Command, a multinational force established in 1950 at the outbreak of the Korean War, with the task of enforcing an armistice between the two countries, facilitating diplomacy with North Korea and maintaining stability in the DMZ. according to Go to the UNC website.
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