SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea stayed silent Wednesday about the detention of an American soldier who sprinted across the Koreas' heavily fortified border as other members of his tour group looked on in shock. Some observers said the North was unlikely to repatriate him anytime soon amid heightened tensions between the rivals.
Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King bolted into North Korea while on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday, a day after he was supposed to leave the country and travel to a base in the U.S. King was released from a South Korean prison earlier this month, not the first time he'd run into legal trouble in the country. He could have faced more punishment in the U.S.
King is the first known American held in North Korea in nearly five years. Each detention has set off complicated diplomatic wrangling, and this one comes at a time of heightened animosity. On Wednesday, North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in an apparent protest at the deployment of a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea for the first time in decades.
“It's likely that North Korea will use the soldier for propaganda purposes in the short term and then as a bargaining chip in the mid- to long term,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.
King, 23, was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had served nearly two months in a South Korean…
