By Simon Lewis and David Brunnström
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It has never been easy for the United States to secure the return of citizens of North Korea, one of the most isolated countries in the world.
The task may be even more difficult in the case of Private Travis King, with communication between countries now almost non-existent, say diplomats and negotiators.
King, a U.S. Army soldier on active duty in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea during a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone on the border between the two Koreas.
Washington is fully mobilized to try to contact Pyongyang about it, US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Thursday, but North Korea has yet to respond.
Since US President Joe Biden took office in 2021, limited contact between Washington and Pyongyang has all but ceased as Trump administration efforts to negotiate over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have failed and North Korea has closed its borders in response to COVID-19.
This is a different situation than most previous negotiators have faced.
“The North Koreans have shown no interest in engaging with us at this point,” said Thomas Hubbard, a retired US ambassador who traveled to Pyongyang in 1994 to bring back Bobby Hall, the last serving member of the US military detained in North Korea.
At that time, US officials had just struck a first nuclear deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il.
“We were in a very different time,” Hubbard said. “The North Koreans saw that they had a stake in the relationship with the United States.”
LIMITED OPTIONS
American negotiators have few means of reaching the North Koreans. The countries have no diplomatic relations and Sweden, which officially represents US interests in Pyongyang, withdrew its diplomats in August 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
US officials said the United States had tried to reach North Korea over King through the United Nations Command hotline and other channels, including the UN in New York, where North Korea has a representative.
The best approach for now, experts say, might be a low-key public stance.
“About 90% (of the outcome) will be determined based on how we react right now,” said Mickey Bergman, executive director of the Richardson Center set up by Bill Richardson, a former diplomat who previously negotiated with North Korea for the release of detainees.
North Korea would likely question King at length and then have the option of deporting or indicting him, Bergman said, adding that the United States should avoid “pushing our chests” and instead communicate calmly that Washington respects Pyongyang’s right to detain and question a soldier who has entered its territory.
Jenny Town, of Washington’s 38 North think tank, said the case was complicated by the fact that she did not know King’s intentions and whether he really wanted to return. King had been detained in South Korea for more than a month for assault and was due to return to the United States to face military discipline.
Cases of American soldiers traveling to North Korea are extremely rare. In 1965, Charles Robert Jenkins, a 25-year-old US Army sergeant, crossed the DMZ and spent four decades in North Korea, where he taught English and also portrayed an American spy in a propaganda film.
“HE IS NOW THEIR PAWN”
A former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea said King could be used as a propaganda tool, but it was unclear how long North Korea would want to exploit his presence.
“Detaining an American soldier is probably an unprofitable headache for the North in the long run,” said Tae Yong-ho, now a member of South Korea’s parliament.
A telling case of North Korean detention is that of Otto Warmbier, a student detained while on tour in 2015 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for attempting to steal an item with a propaganda slogan.
Warmbier was eventually returned to the United States in a coma in 2017, but died days later.
Otto’s father, Fred, feels empathy for King and his family.
“He is a young man – we don’t know his mental state,” he told Reuters in an interview. “He is now their pawn. If it was any other country in the world, there would be communication now.”
Asked about King, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that the Biden administration had repeatedly tried to restore dialogue with Pyongyang since taking office, offering new nuclear talks without preconditions.
“We’ve sent this message multiple times,” Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum. “Here is the answer we got: one missile launch after another,” referring to repeated North Korean missile tests.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Don Durfee and Stephen Coates)