(Seoul) A senior North Korean diplomat serving in Cuba defected to South Korea last November, months before Seoul and Havana established diplomatic relations, South Korea’s intelligence agency told AFP.
Ri Il Kyu had been in charge of political affairs at Pyongyang’s embassy in Cuba since 2019 and was tasked with “obstructing the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba,” South Korean newspaper Chosun Daily revealed Tuesday.
Mr Ri defected to South Korea with his wife and children in early November, the newspaper said, making him the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat known to have defected to the South since the 2016 flight of Thae Yong Ho, Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to London.
The South Korean intelligence agency confirmed to AFP the “defection of the political affairs counselor of the North Korean embassy in Cuba”, without further details.
The Unification Ministry has reported a growing number of defections by North Korean elites, which it said accounted for about 10 of the 196 recorded defections in 2023, the highest number in years. About three months after Ri announced his defection, South Korea and Cuba, a communist country that is one of Pyongyang’s oldest allies, announced the establishment of diplomatic relations.
“Dark Future”
In an exclusive interview with Chosun Daily, Ri said he decided to defect after Pyongyang rejected his request for medical treatment in Mexico following an injury, while he was unable to receive the necessary treatment in Cuba due to a lack of specialized equipment.
He also claimed to have been the subject of unfair evaluation reports after he rejected a request for bribes from a senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official in 2019 to discuss plans to open a North Korean restaurant in Cuba.
“Every North Korean at least once thinks about living in South Korea,” he told Chosun Daily. “Disillusionment with the North Korean regime and a bleak future led me to consider defection.”
Mr Ri also claimed that former North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and his family were sent to a political prison camp in December 2019 on “suspicion of corruption” in a bribery case involving the North’s embassy in Beijing.
In May, South Korea’s spy agency claimed that Pyongyang was planning “terrorist” attacks targeting South Korean officials and citizens abroad. As a result, the foreign ministry raised the alert level for its diplomatic missions in five countries.
The agency said the move was a response to a wave of defections by high-ranking North Koreans who were trapped abroad during the pandemic and sought to avoid returning home after border controls were eased.