Receive free updates on North Korea
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest news North Korea There is news every morning.
U.S. soldiers who crossed from South Korea into North Korea in July have been repatriated and detained in their home country, according to a U.S. official.
Earlier on Wednesday, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency announced that Private Travis Kim would be expelled from the communist country.
The return marks the end of a bizarre episode that could worsen Pyongyang’s already tense relations with the United States and its ally South Korea.
Kim’s flight to North Korea sparked intense international speculation about the 23-year-old soldier from Wisconsin’s motives.
North Korea’s Central News Agency said on Wednesday that Pyongyang had concluded its investigation into the border crossing incident and claimed that Kim held negative sentiments about alleged inhumane treatment and racial discrimination among U.S. troops.
KCNA added that Kim was “disappointed with the unequal American society.” It did not provide details about the events surrounding his expulsion.
On July 18, Kim rushed across the border with a tour guide to visit the “Joint Security Zone” between North and South Korea.
The soldier, one of about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, was scheduled to fly to Dallas to face military disciplinary action the day before the crossing. He has previously been detained by South Korea for assault and criminal damage.
After weeks of silence on the incident, Pyongyang said last month that Kim had been detained. He is the first U.S. citizen confirmed to have been detained in North Korea in nearly five years. Pyongyang also said Kim had been seeking asylum in North Korea or a third country.
U.S. officials have been concerned about Kim’s health, given North Korea’s past harsh treatment of some U.S. detainees. American student Otto Warmbier was arrested in Pyongyang in 2016 and accused of trying to steal propaganda posters. He was released after 17 months in prison and returned to the United States in a coma. He died a week later.
North Korea has provided no information about Kim’s health or his treatment.
The decision to release Kim comes as South Korea’s conservative government plans to step up criticism of Pyongyang’s human rights record. In August, the United Nations Security Council held its first discussion since 2017 on human rights issues in isolated countries.
It is unclear why North Korea decided to expel Kim and how it will arrange for his return. Since there are no formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Pyongyang, Sweden has represented U.S. interests in Pyongyang in the past. But most Western diplomats have left Pyongyang since it was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
About 20 U.S. citizens have been detained by North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War, and Pyongyang has used many of them for propaganda purposes. Those who eventually leave are often handed over to a high-level U.S. delegation that is visiting the country.
North Korea is currently moving to lift some of the world’s strictest Covid-19 restrictions, making a belated reopening and ending a years-long period of self-isolation.
Svlook
