SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – A North Korean diplomat who served as the country’s interim ambassador to Kuwait defected to South Korea, according to South Korean lawmakers informed by the Seoul spy agency.
Ha Tae-keung, a conservative opposition lawmaker and executive secretary of the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, said on Tuesday that he was informed by officials of the National Intelligence Service that the diplomat arrived in South Korea in September 2019 with his wife and at least one son.
That would make him one of the most experienced North Koreans to desert in recent years. North Korea, which calls itself a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive to defections, especially among its elite, and sometimes insists that they are South Korean or American plans to undermine its government.
Ha said he was informed that the diplomat, who changed his name to Ryu Hyun-woo after arriving in the South, escaped through a South Korean diplomatic mission, but the spies did not specify where. Ha said espionage officials did not provide specific details as to why Ryu decided to desert.
The office of Kim Byung-kee, a legislator for the ruling liberal party and another executive secretary of the intelligence committee, said he was also informed that Ryu now lives in South Korea. Kim’s advisers gave no further details.
NIS and the South Korean Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, have not independently confirmed Ryu’s defection when contacted by The Associated Press.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A cell phone number previously associated with the North Korean embassy rang unanswered on Tuesday.
North Korean state media has yet to comment on Ryu’s situation.
Although North Korea has expressed anger at some high-profile defections in the past, it is also known to remain silent when defectors remain discreet – like the 2018 defection of its former ambassador to Italy – in part to avoid highlighting vulnerabilities. of your government.
North Korea has long used its diplomats to develop profitable sources abroad, and experts say it is possible that diplomats who defected have struggled to meet the financial demands of local officials.
North Korea’s long-mismanaged economy was devastated by U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear program, which strengthened significantly in 2016 and 2017 amid a series of provocative nuclear and weapons tests.
The defections of North Korean diplomats may reflect a growing sense of uncertainty among the country’s elite about the country’s future under a nuclear weapons-obsessed third generation dynasty, said Shin Beomchul, an analyst at the Seoul Korean Research Institute for Strategy National and a former South Korean diplomat.
“The economic situation in the North has worsened significantly with the 2016 and 2017 sanctions and, instead of seeking reforms and openings to the outside world, the leadership is doubling to increase political control,” said Shin. “It inspires questions about the future among the elite, and when they get the chance, they try to escape.”
However, Shin said it would be premature to interpret the defections as a sign that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s control over his regime is weakening.
In recent speeches, Kim promised to strengthen his nuclear arsenal and reaffirm greater state control over the economy and society. Experts say Kim’s comments were intended, in part, to put pressure on the government of new US President Joe Biden after watching his country’s economy decline amid border closures triggered by a pandemic and the failure to obtain sanctions. that never materialized in his diplomacy with former President Donald Trump.
The North Korean Embassy in Kuwait City is the country’s only diplomatic post in the Gulf region. North Korea already had thousands of workers working in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before the United Nations stepped up sanctions against exports of North Korean labor, which had been an important source of foreign income for the North.
In a letter to the United Nations in March 2020, Kuwait said it stopped issuing work permits to North Koreans and expelled those working in the country. The UAE said they expelled all North Korean workers in late December 2019. Oman and Qatar have not provided updates since 2019 and 2018, respectively.
In September 2017, the Kuwaiti government expelled the North Korean ambassador and four other diplomats after North Korean nuclear and missile tests. Ryu reportedly entered as an interim ambassador after that.
It appears that Ryu fled months after North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, disappeared with his wife in late 2018. Ha and other lawmakers told reporters last year that they learned that Jo was living in South Korea. South under government protection after arriving in July 2019.
Jo was possibly the highest-ranking North Korean official to defect to the South since the arrival in 1997 of a ruling official from the Workers’ Party, who has already taught the father of leader Kim Jong Un, the late leader Kim Jong Il.
Tae Young Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London who defected to South Korea in 2016 and was elected legislator representing Ha’s party last year, said in a Facebook post that Ryu’s defection would shock the members of North Korea’s ruling elite because he appears to be the son-in-law of Jon Il Chun, who once oversaw a ruling party bureau that ran the Kim family’s covert money-making operations. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify Tae’s statement.
More than 33,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors said they were escaping harsh political repression and poverty, while elites like Tae expressed resentment over the country’s dynastic leadership.
Tae said he decided to flee because he did not want his children to live “miserable” lives in North Korea and that he was disappointed with Kim Jong Un, who he said terrorized North Korean elites with executions and purges while consolidating power aggressively pursued nuclear weapons.
North Korea called Tae “human scum” and accused him of embezzling government money and committing other crimes, without providing specific evidence.
___
Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.