After earning a bachelor’s degree in Pyongyang, he also went to Denmark to continue studying, according to former North Korean diplomats now in South Korea.
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North and South Korea are technically still at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.
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 USA and other countries”. Its revelation of Thae’s defection came as its ties with its rival North Korea are at one of their lowest points in decades over the North’s nuclear ambitions. A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said, “It’s not a story we’re commenting on”.
South Korea warned on Sunday (Aug 21) of possible North Korean assassinations and kidnappings in revenge for recent high-profile defections to the South. “Since the UN Security Council put into place tough sanctions against North Korea following its fourth nuclear test and long-range missile launch earlier this year, the North Korean elite working overseas have reportedly been wavering”, one South Korean government official said. While unusual, the defection to South Korea by a descendant of anti-Japanese partisan fighters is not the first, despite some reports to the contrary.
Overall, the number of defectors, mostly from the area near North Koreas border with China, has declined since Kim Jong-un took power following his father Kim Jong-ils death in late 2011.
Mr Thae is thought to be the highest-ranking North Korean official ever to defect. North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and Seoul been working hard to apply more worldwide pressure on the North.
He had worked at the London embassy for about 10 years, Yonhap said.
Thae was formerly a minister at the North’s embassy in London.
As last summer’s artillery exchanges intensified, North Korea announced a “quasi-state of war”.
Thae, who was scheduled to return to Pyongyang this summer after completing his stint in the United Kingdom, went missing along with his wife and two sons in mid-July, the BBC reported. He has also mentioned an older son who had graduated from a university with a degree in medicine or public health.
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 inKorean.
Banning exports of mineral resources, jet fuel or other strategically import materials to North Korea, the latest resolution is viewed as putting considerable pressure on the country. “It’s not the exercises, but the state of diplomacy in the weeks prior that will tell them whether North Korea will do something big in retaliation”.
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“North Korean embassies generally keep a lot of cash on hand since they can’t use bank accounts, which frequently leads to such incidents”, the source said.
