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Now, in 2023, the North Korean regime is less open to talks than ever before. Back then, relations between Washington and Pyongyang were more amenable to dialogue. In 2009, former US President, Bill Clinton, travelled to Pyongyang to secure the release of two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were sentenced to hard labour having been charged with illegally entering the country. That North Korea would seize on King’s border-crossing as an opportunity to restart talks with the United States seems less plausible now than in previous years. The past treatment of US citizens held captive by the North ranges from being held in custody for a few months to suffering tragic fates, and since 2017 US citizens have been banned from entering North Korea. Yesterday’s incident, however, is the first in the post-covid era, further adding to North Korea’s apparent surprise. US border crossings into North Korea are infrequent but not non-existent. Joining such a tour, however, requires prior planning and authorisation, and is far from an act of happenstance. The story as currently reported is that King recently spent time in a detention facility in the South, and while being escorted to Seoul’s airport to be returned to his homeland, decided to join a tour of the DMZ instead of boarding the aeroplane.

Identified as Private 2nd Class Travis King, the current narrative of the protagonist’s movements contains unfilled gaps. Given the rarity of such an occurrence, it’s likely that the North Koreans are still calculating how to respond.

It has not even answered the military hotlines that connect to South Korea and the United Nations Command.

Nearly twenty-four hours have passed, and apart from launching two short-range ballistic missiles, North Korea has remained silent. In a strange turn of events, a US soldier decided to cross the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). With just over a week until the seventieth anniversary of the inconclusive end of the Korean War, the inter-Korean border has unexpectedly become a site of heightened tensions.