North Korea’s interim ambassador to Kuwait defected to South Korea on the last high-level flight from the isolated country.
Ryu Hyun-woo has led the North Korean embassy in Kuwait since ex-ambassador So Chang-sik was expelled after a 2017 UN resolution sought to curtail the country’s diplomatic missions abroad.
Ryu defected to South Korea last September, according to Tae Yong-ho, who was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain before settling in the South in 2016 and being elected legislator last year.
Kuwait has been an important source of foreign currency for Pyongyang, which has sent thousands of workers there, mainly for construction projects.
Tae said Ryu is the son-in-law of Jon Il-chun, who has oversaw a Workers Party bureau responsible for managing the secret coffers of the ruling Kim family, known as Sala 39.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service declined to comment.
Ryu’s defection could be a sign that the North Korean elite that sustains leader Kim Jong-un’s power base is moving away from him slowly but steadily, Tae said.
Ryu fled several months after Jo Song-gil, who was North Korea’s ambassador to Italy, disappeared from the embassy with his wife and resurfaced in South Korea.
Tae told Reuters that the knowledge and experience of the outside world gained as a diplomat has fueled disillusionment among his family and that he decided to flee to “give freedom” to his children, asking other officials to do the same.
“I want to convey to my colleagues who work around the world and to the North Korean elites that there is an alternative to North Korea and that the door is open,” Tae said in an interview.