Just over two months after he sprinted into North Korea across the inter-Korean border, Pvt. Travis King is being flown back to America after the North Koreans expelled him
A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. Just over two months after he sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified inter-Korean border, King was put on a plane back to America after the North released him into U.S. custody. Maybe it never made sense for North Korea to hold on to Pvt. Travis King.
King’s case was unique, not least because he was one of the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from the nuclear-armed North. Pyongyang did not provide a detailed explanation when it announced the expulsion. In a brief report, the official Korean Central News Agency said King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored “ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination” within the U.S. Army and was “disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.”Analysts say the 23-year-old’s legal troubles could have limited his propaganda value.
North Korea likely spent much of King's 71 days in custody weighing his potential as a propaganda asset. In the end, KCNA’s brief description of King’s supposed frustrations with American society and the U.S. military was all the North was going to get out of him, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification.
"Releasing King, in this manner, underwrites Pyongyang’s ongoing statements of disinterest in diplomacy with Washington more credibly," said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Other Americans were detained, publicly condemned and handed harsh penalties based on confessions of anti-state activities they later said were coerced. Freeing them often required lengthy backdoor negotiations and high-profile U.S. officials flying into Pyongyang to secure their release.King's legal troubles and the intense media coverage surrounding his dash across the border zone likely made it difficult for Pyongyang’s propaganda writers to craft a story about a disillusioned U.S.
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