This is an image taken from video taken on April 5, 2004 of Thae Yong Ho, North Korean diplomat speaking during an interview in Pyongyang.
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South Korea’ JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, which first reported Thae’s defection on Tuesday, said he had been under pressure from Pyongyang to combat growing worldwide criticism of North Korea’s human rights record.
A spokesman for the North Korean Red Cross called that defection a “group abduction” of DPRK employees “in broad daylight”, according to DPRK state media.
“If it is appropriate to give a response, then you might hear about our response”, they told Reuters.
In London, no confirmation could be obtained from the North Korean embassy and the Foreign Office declined to comment.
South Korea on Wednesday announced the defection of the deputy ambassador of North Korea in Britain, who is now located in Seoul with his family.
The Seoul authorities have vetted the waitresses and their supervisor and allowed them to enter normal society, the Unification Ministry said on Wednesday.
Tae Yong-ho, a minister at North Korea’s embassy in London was initially reported to have defected to a “third country” by South Korean press on Tuesday – a term usually used to describe a country that is neither North nor South Korea.
North Korea allows only citizens deemed most loyal to the regime to travel overseas, so Thae’s fleeing marks the latest in a series of embarrassing defections.
North Korean officials and workers at foreign countries are hard pressed to repatriate money in the face of tougher global sanctions, and this is exerting considerable pressure.
North Korea has tested a series of ballistic missiles since drawing strengthened United Nations sanctions following its fourth ever nuclear test in January.
The younger son’s classmate was quoted by the Guardian as saying that his North Korean friend, who was reportedly born in Denmark and came to London four years ago, had vanished in mid-July and all his social network accounts went dark.
Thae’s wife defected with him.
Debonair and well-spoken, Thae Yong Ho has over ten years experience working on United Kingdom and EU-related issues as a diplomat. Even after their interrogation at the NIS’s Defector Protection Center, they were not sent to the Unification Ministry’s Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees, better known as Hanawon, as is normal protocol with defectors.
His measured style was a contrast to the bombastic rhetoric often used by Pyongyang’s propagandists, although at some events he sang revolutionary Red Army Choir songs in Korean.
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There was no immediate reaction from North Korea to news of Thae’s defection.
