SEOUL: A US soldier facing disciplinary action fled across the inter-Korean border into North Korea on Tuesday and was believed to be in North Korean custody, US officials said, creating a fresh crisis for Washington in its dealings with the nuclear-armed state.

Colonel Isaac Taylor, a spokesperson for the US Armed Force in Korea, said a US service member on an orientation tour of Joint Security Area between the Koreas “wilfully and without authorisation crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)”.

“We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA counterparts to reso­lve this incident,” Taylor said, referring to North Korea’s People’s Army.

South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo daily, citing South Korea’s army, identified the person as Travis King, a US army soldier with the rank of private second class. The newspaper later deleted the name.

CBS News said that before the incident the soldier was being escorted back to the United States for disciplinary reasons, but after going through airport security somehow returned and managed to join the border tour.

It said a person who said they witnessed the event and was part of the same tour group told CBS News they had just visited one of the buildings at the site when “this man gives out a loud ‘ha ha ha’, and just runs in between some buildings”.

CBS cited the witness as saying that military personnel reacted within seconds to the man’s actions, but initially, there was confusion. “I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didn’t come back, I realised it wasn’t a joke, and then everybody reacted and things got crazy,” it quoted the witness as saying.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2023