Travis King: North Korea using US soldier as propaganda tool

In its first public statement on detained US soldier Travis King, North Korea claimed the private was fleeing "inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army."

The statement, carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), added that King "expressed his willingness to seek refuge in the DPRK or a third country, saying that he was disillusioned at the unequal American society."

Analysts said the message broadcast on state-run news agency KCNA was an apparent attempt by Pyongyang to blunt international criticism of its own human rights record.  

King, a 23-year-old private 2nd class, ran across the border into North Korea on July 18 while on a tour of the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone. The day before, King was supposed to fly back to the United States to face charges in connection with a series of incidents while stationed in South Korea but left the airport after Army escorts released him after the security checkpoint.

The KCNA report claimed King admitted that he "illegally intruded into the territory" of North Korea.

King has not been seen in public since running across the border in July, and it is not known if the comments attributed to him by the North Korean authorities are in any way accurate.

The US Department of Defense said it could not independently verify the KCNA report and remains focused on securing King's safe return. The US has yet been unable to obtain information from North Korea about King's condition and location.

North Korea using King for propaganda

For Pyongyang, King's greatest value is as a propaganda tool, said Dan Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University.

"This has come at a very convenient time for them," he said. "These claims of racism and inequality in US society are consistent with what the regime there tells its people every day and just reinforces the image they have of daily mass shootings, poverty and chaos.

"Of course, North Korea is going to play that up as much as they can, and they will try to use this sort of 'whataboutism' to deflect the evidence that has been collected of human rights abuses," Pinkston said. 

"Their own people will believe it when they read about it in their papers, but the rest of the world knows what is going on," he added.

On Tuesday — the day before it released the statement — North Korean diplomats at the United Nations in New York expressed their opposition to a US request for a UN Security Council debate on the human rights situation in the North. 

The diplomats said any such debate would be a "violent infringement" upon North Korea's "dignity and sovereignty."

North Korea frequently bristles at any attempt to criticize its government, military or policies.

Human rights groups accuse the North of a wide range of abuses, ranging from arbitrary arrest and political repression to the banning of religious freedom, suppression of free speech, the use of forced labor camps for political prisoners, banishment and public executions for political crimes.

Tensions high on Korean Peninsula

"It would be extremely naive for anyone to believe that they would not have used King for their own propaganda purposes," said Rah Jong-yil, a former diplomat and senior South Korean intelligence officer.

"Something like this is simply too good an opportunity for them to pass up," he told DW. "The only impact it is likely to have will be in the domestic North Korean context." 

Pinkston said the King case "ties in very neatly to the overall North Korean narrative that they have been pushing for years."

"July and August is traditionally the time of year when they air their grievances against the US, the South and Japan as it is the anniversary of the armistice to end the Korean War and Japan's surrender in 1945," he added.

"This statement from the North is not a coincidence," Pinkston said. "This is a chance for them to air their grievances and repeat the narrative of 'endless Western imperialism' and so on."

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are currently heightened with a conservative government in Seoul  taking a far firmer line with Pyongyang than the previous administration.

North Korea and regional security concerns will certainly be on the agenda when South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol holds talks on Friday in the US with President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. 

Edited by: Wesley Rahn