UNC makes contact with North over U.S. soldier: Report

North Korea

Published: 23 Jul. 2023, 18:15 Updated: 23 Jul. 2023, 18:19

UNC makes contact with North over U.S. soldier: Report

British Lt. General Andrew Harrison, right, who serves as the deputy commander of the United Nations Command, guides South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup through the Joint Security Area (JSA) on April 25. [DEFENSE MINISTRY]

The United Nations Command (UNC) has made contact with the North Korean military regarding the U.S. Army private who dashed into the North at the Joint Security Area (JSA) last week, according to the London-based Sunday Times on Saturday.

The UNC is responsible for maintaining the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean Peninsula, including the JSA, where U.S. Private Second Class Travis King bolted into North Korea.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, British Lt. General Andrew Harrison, who serves as the UNC's deputy commander, said the command made contact with the Korean People’s Army (KPA), the North’s military, via the “pink phone” hotline, so called after a pink phone on the South Korean side of the JSA that links the UNC with the KPA.

“We don’t know the location of Private King at the moment, but we are in communication with the Korean People’s Army, and we are maintaining, through the joint security area, constant dialogue with the KPA. That link is open and is alive,” Harrison told the Sunday Times in an interview in Seoul.

But Harrison also declined to offer further details, saying, “I don’t really want to go into the detail of that discussion because, in the end, the primary concern is the welfare of that individual.”

Harrison’s interview with the Sunday Times marks the first confirmation that talks are ongoing with the North over King.

A U.S. military report leaked to the online outlet The Messenger on Wednesday included details suggesting King was a flight risk months before he crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on Tuesday.

The U.S. Army document, known as a “serious incident report” in the U.S. Defense Department, said King was originally held in a South Korean facility for three incidents that occurred in September and October and scheduled to be returned to the United States on Monday to face disciplinary action.

But before his two-month detention, he booked two tours to the DMZ. He missed the first tour, but he was able to confirm his reservation for the second one through Hana Tours ITC shortly after he was released from confinement, the report said.

Although King was taken to Incheon International Airport on July 17 by South Korean and U.S. military escorts, who were only able to accompany him up to the entrance of the customs area, he did not board his flight and checked into his DMZ tour the following day.

His apparently premeditated dash into the North at the JSA comes at a time of high tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

On Saturday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the North fired several cruise missiles into the Yellow Sea at around 4:00 a.m.

The cruise missile launches came three days after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, the same day that the U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky arrived in Busan.

North Korea warned on Thursday that the submarine’s deployment to South Korea may fulfill the regime’s self-proclaimed legal conditions for using nuclear weapons, which stipulate Pyongyang will “automatically and immediately” launch a nuclear strike if the “command and control system” of its nuclear forces is in danger of an attack.

The cruise missile launches also took place a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado that the North’s “repeated provocations” has only served to draw Seoul, Washington and Tokyo closer together in security cooperation.

The U.S. state secretary also said he warned his Chinese counterparts during his recent trip to Beijing that the United States would continue to “take steps that aren’t directed at China, but that China probably won’t like” if Beijing doesn’t help Washington bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]