North Korean diplomats often have many unofficial duties in addition to their regular work, and several have been expelled for illicit activities such as drug smuggling, weapons trading, and dealing in illegal wildlife products such as ivory and rhino horn.
Advertisement
Dr Ramon Pacheco Pardo, senior lecturer in worldwide relations at King’s College London, said a diplomatic defection “could prove very valuable to South Korea, the United States and other countries”.
As of Thursday, Pyongyang hadn’t made a public statement about the defection. Thae’s arrival in the south was announced by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which said he had fled there out of disgust with the Kim government.
Thae Yong-ho, formerly Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador in Britain, is now in the process of seeking asylum in a third country, according to South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, which cited anonymous sources in its report.
North’s Korea’s No. 2 diplomat in the United Kingdom has defected to South Korea – one of the highest-ranking officials to do so, according to South Korea.
It also comes at a tense time in relations between North Korea and South Korea and its allies. Moreover, previous defections of officials from the North have by and large been isolated incidents that did not lead to a chain of more choosing to flee. That same month, South Korea confirmed that 13 North Koreans working at a state-run restaurant in China – another key source of foreign currency for the regime – had defected.
Shortly before the group’s defection, the South Korean government had called on its citizens traveling overseas to avoid North Korean restaurants, saying the money they spent there went to funding North Korea’s weapons programs.
The North responded furiously to the South’s account of the flight of the restaurant workers, alleging repeatedly that the women – 12 waitresses and their manager – were tricked into thinking they were being transferred to work at another restaurant in Malaysia.
Thae’s case presents a more hard conundrum for Pyongyang. “This man has lived outside the DPRK for 10 years so his current knowledge about internal politics and domestic affairs is not extensive”, said Madden, using the acronym for North Korea’s formal name.
North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, and South Korea has been working hard to apply more worldwide pressure on the North.
Thae, 55, is a veteran diplomat who is experienced in dealing with countries in Western Europe. “The United States remains deeply concerned about the human rights situation in North Korea and the treatment of North Korean refugees and asylum seekers”.
He was appointed minister at the London embassy four years ago. By the time other embassy officials began looking for him, he was gone, the paper said.
Advertisement
Talmadge is the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief.
