North Korea’s acting ambassador to Kuwait defected to South Korea during the latest high-profile escape from the isolated country.
Ryu Hyun-woo had headed the North Korean embassy in Kuwait since former ambassador So Chang-sik was expelled after a 2017 UN resolution sought to scrap the country’s overseas diplomatic missions.
Ryu defected to South Korea last September, according to Tae Yong-ho, who was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain before settling in the South in 2016 and being elected as a legislator last year.
Kuwait was an important source of foreign exchange for Pyongyang, sending thousands of workers there, mainly for construction projects.
Tae said Ryu is the son-in-law of Jon Il-chun, who once oversaw a Workers’ Party’s party office responsible for managing the secret treasury of the Kim ruling family, known as Room 39.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service declined to comment.
Ryu’s defection could be a sign that the North Korean elite supporting leader Kim Jong-un’s power base are slowly but constantly drifting away from him, Tae said.
Ryu fled several months after Jo Song-gil, North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, disappeared from the embassy with his wife and reappeared in South Korea.
Tae told Reuters that the knowledge and experiences from the outside world he had gained as a diplomat had caused the disenchantment among his family, and he decided to escape to “ release ” his children and called on other officials to follow suit.
“I want to show my colleagues who work around the world and the North Korean elites that there is an alternative to North Korea, and the door is open,” Tae said in an interview.