Mr. Jeong declined to reveal Mr. Thae’s defection route, citing the diplomatic sensitivities involved for the concerned countries. He is one of the highest-ranking North Korean diplomats to defect to Seoul.
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A source will acquainted with North Korea said Thursday Thae’s father, Thae Byung-ryul, was one of the people who engaged in anti-Japanese activities during the Kim Il-sung era.
Thae was believed to have worked at the embassy in London for 10 years, with one of his main tasks being to counter the image of North Korea as a nuclear pariah state and notorious human rights abuser.
An official at the North Korean Embassy in London would not confirm the defection, describing reports of the event as “quite sudden”.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said Tae told South Korean officials that he chose to defect because of his disgust with the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his yearning for South Korean democracy and worries about the future of his children, according to media reports.
The embassy tried to find him but said it failed, according to JoongAng Ilbo’s source, who the paper said had in-depth knowledge of North Korea and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
There was no immediate reaction from North Korea to news of Thae’s defection.
“The bigger picture is that while there have been fewer total defections per year under Kim Jong Un, there has been a higher number of strategically significant and political defections”, said Mr Sokeel Park of LiNK, a non-governmental organisation which works with North Korean defectors.
Defections by high-ranking North Korean diplomats are on the rise.
Thae’s departure could also be linked to tougher sanctions against North Korea following this year’s nuclear and long-range missile tests.
Mr Thae defected due to discontent with the regime of Mr Kim Jong Un in North Korea and for the future of his child, ministry spokesman Jeong Joon Hee told a news conference.
According to Jeong, Thae told South Korean officials that he had defected because he was disillusioned with the government of Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader.
Thae and his family are now safely in South Korea, Jeong said, but he did not elaborate on how or when the defection took place.
Defectors are referred to by the North in the harshest of terms. Steve Evans, the BBC’s Seoul correspondent, who is acquainted with Thae, wrote on Wednesday that Thae was scheduled to return to Pyongyang this summer, and wondered if Thae may have feared retribution upon his return to North Korea for his role in arranging the trips of BBC reporters who covered the Workers’ Party Congress in Pyongyang in May. He is cited in European Parliament archives as a London-based diplomat joining a North Korean delegation to Brussels. “If they broadcast (North Korea) as it is, the editors of these TV stations and newspapers will (change it)”.
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