UN Command Says It’s Communicating with North Korea Over Detained US Soldier 

Lt. Gen. Andrew Harrison, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, speaks during a news briefing at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 24, 2023. (AP)
Lt. Gen. Andrew Harrison, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, speaks during a news briefing at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 24, 2023. (AP)
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UN Command Says It’s Communicating with North Korea Over Detained US Soldier 

Lt. Gen. Andrew Harrison, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, speaks during a news briefing at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 24, 2023. (AP)
Lt. Gen. Andrew Harrison, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, speaks during a news briefing at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 24, 2023. (AP)

The deputy commander of the UN Command said Monday it has started conversations with North Korea over an American soldier who ran into the North last week across the Koreas’ heavily armed border.

Gen. Andrew Harrison said the process has started through communications lines set up at the Joint Security Area between the Koreas under the armistice agreement that stopped the fighting of the 1950-53 Korean War. He said the well-being of Pvt. Travis King remains the command’s primary concern, but refused to provide more details, citing the sensitivity of the discussions.

North Korea has remained publicly silent about King, who crossed the border last Tuesday while he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas.

US officials have expressed concern about his well-being and said previously that North Korea was ignoring their requests for information about him.

Harrison said he “remains optimistic,” but said there was no way to know how the conversation with North Korea would proceed. Civilian tours to the Joint Security Area have been suspended since King’s dash across the border.

King’s crossing came at a time of high tensions in the Korean Peninsula, where the pace of both North Korea’s weapons demonstrations and the United States’ combined military exercises have intensified in a tit-for-tat cycle.

Harrison's comments came hours after South Korea's military said a nuclear-propelled US submarine arrived at a port on Jeju Island in the second deployment of a major US naval asset to the Korean Peninsula this month. The arrival of the USS Annapolis adds to the allies' show of force to counter North Korean nuclear threats.

Last week, the USS Kentucky became the first US nuclear-armed submarine to come to South Korea since the 1980s. North Korea reacted to its arrival in Busan by test-firing ballistic and cruise missiles in apparent demonstrations that it could make nuclear strikes against South Korea and deployed US naval vessels.

In between those launches, North Korea’s defense minister issued a veiled threat insisting the Kentucky’s docking in South Korea could be grounds for the North to use a nuclear weapon against it. North Korea has used similar rhetoric before, but the statement underscored how much relations are strained now.

Analysts say North Korea may wait weeks or even months to provide meaningful information about King to maximize leverage and add urgency to US efforts to secure his release. Some say North Korea may try to wrest concessions from Washington, such as tying his release to the United States cutting back its military activities with South Korea.

The United States and South Korea have been expanding their combined military exercises and increasing regional deployments of US strategic assets like bombers, aircraft carriers and submarines in a show of force against North Korea, which has test-fired around 100 missiles since the start of 2022.

The Annapolis, whose main mission is destroying enemy ships and submarines, is powered by a nuclear reactor but is armed with conventional weapons. The Annapolis mainly docked at Jeju to load supplies, but Jang Do Young, a spokesperson of South Korea’s navy, said the US and South Korean militaries were discussing whether to arrange training involving the vessel.



Zelenskiy Says North Korea Could Send More Troops, Military Equipment to Russia

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a joint press conference with European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a joint press conference with European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
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Zelenskiy Says North Korea Could Send More Troops, Military Equipment to Russia

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a joint press conference with European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a joint press conference with European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded in Russia's Kursk region and warned that Pyongyang could send more personnel and equipment for Moscow's army.

"There are risks of North Korea sending additional troops and military equipment to the Russian army," Zelenskiy said on X after receiving a report from his top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.

"We will have tangible responses to this," he added.

The estimate of North Korean losses is higher than that provided by Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), which said on Monday at least 1,100 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded.

The assessment was in line with a briefing last week by South Korea's spy agency, which reported some 100 deaths with another 1,000 wounded in the region.

Zelenskiy said he cited preliminary data. Reuters could not independently verify reports on combat losses.

Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Koreans on its side. Pyongyang initially dismissed reports about the troop deployment as "fake news", but a North Korean official has said any such deployment would be lawful.

According to Ukrainian and allied assessments, North Korea has sent around 12,000 troops to Russia.

Some of them have been deployed for combat in Russia's Kursk region, where Ukraine still holds a chunk of land after a major cross-border incursion in August.

JCS added that it has detected signs of Pyongyang planning to produce suicide drones to be shipped to Russia, in addition to the already supplied 240mm multiple rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled howitzers.

Kyiv continues to press allies for a tougher response as it says Moscow's and Pyongyang's transfer of warfare experience and military technologies constitute a global threat.

"For the world, the cost of restoring stability is always much higher than the cost of effectively pressuring those who destabilize the situation and destroy lives," Zelenskiy said.