High ranking North Korean diplomat ‘defects to South Korea’

The diplomat defected to South Korea in September 2020

North Korea recently had a rare party congress where Kim Jong-un talked about bolstering his country’s ‘nuclear deterrent’ (AP)

The acting ambassador of North Korea to Kuwait has defected to South Korea, a South Korean politician has claimed.

The high ranking diplomat, Ryu Hyun Woo, had been leading North Korea’s embassy in Kuwait since 2017 after the former ambassador So Chang Sik was expelled.  

The defection was reported by Tae Yong Ho, who was himself a North Korean diplomat – latterly the country’s deputy ambassador to Britain – before he settled in South Korea in 2016 and became an MP in 2020.

According to Mr Tae, Ryu Hyun Woo’s defection could be a signal that the social elites of North Korea, whose support is key to Kim Jong-un’s retention of power, are slowly drifting away from him.

Mr Ryu is the son-in-law of Jon Il Chun, who once oversaw a Worker’s Party bureau responsible for managing the ruling Kim family’s secret coffers, Mr Tae explained. He said the defection itself happened in secrecy in September last year.

In 2018, North Korean’s acting ambassador to Italy Jo Song-Gil went missing with his wife. Last year it was finally revealed that Mr Jo was living in South Korea.

Mr Tae emphasised that he wants to tell his “colleagues working around the world and North Korean elites that there is an alternative to North Korea, and the door is open,” reported the Reuters news agency.

Over the decades, many people from North Korea have defected to other nations including South Korea. For instance, in the southwest London suburb of New Malden, a favourite place for the Korean community, there are about 600 North Korean defectors.

A couple of weeks ago, North Korea organised a rare party congress which ended with its leader Kim Jong-un adopting a resolution to bolster the country’s “nuclear deterrent.” 

He claimed that the country was developing a host of advanced weaponry, including ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons, hypersonic gliding-flight warheads, multi-warhead missiles,  military reconnaissance satellites, a nuclear-powered submarine, and land- and submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles that use solid fuel.

In a military parade in Pyongyang that followed the congress, North Korea unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).  

Additional reporting by agencies