US officials did not say how long King had been in South Korea, but at some point he faced disciplinary action for assault and spent about 50 days in a detention facility. The US Army has identified King as a cavalry scout who joined the military in January 2021. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday, Aquilino said King “made a run across the demilitarized zone in the Joint Security Area, was picked up by the North Koreans, and we’ve had no contact at this point.”Īquilino added that he has “gotten no reports” that King was a North Korea sympathizer. John Aquilino, who is in charge of US Indo-Pacific Command, said Tuesday that the US has had “no contact at this point” with North Korea in regards to King.

It is typical of North Korea not to respond to US outreach, the defense official added.Īdm. The US has been actively reaching out to North Korea to resolve the situation, but it has not yet heard back, a defense official said Wednesday. Travis King, the US soldier who ran across the military demarcation line into North Korea on Tuesday, July 18 From Travis King/Facebook “I can’t see Travis doing anything like that,” Gates told ABC, adding that she heard from her son several days ago and he told her that he’d be returning to his base in Fort Bliss. King’s mother, Claudine Gates, told ABC she was “shocked” after being told by the US Army that her son had crossed into North Korea. King had been on a tour of a border area as a civilian when he crossed the demarcation line. An army official told CNN the private was set to be administratively separated from the US Army.ĭetails about how exactly King ended up on the North Korean side of the border remain unclear. New details have emerged about a US soldier who crossed into North Korea on Tuesday – but his exact whereabouts remain a mystery since the secretive country hasn’t said a word about the incident.Ĭourt documents showed that Private Travis King, believed to be the first US soldier to cross into North Korea since 1982, had a history of assault, was facing disciplinary action over his conduct and was meant to go back to the US the day before the incident.

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