Senior North Korea diplomat flees to South in highest ranking diplomat to escape since 2016

People-look-at-North-Korea-from-Paju People look at North Korea from the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju. A North Korean diplomat based in Cuba has become the highest ranking to defect to the South since 2016. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP

Revelation 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Without giving any further details, South Korea’s spy agency the National Intelligence Service confirmed an earlier report by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, which said that a counsellor responsible for political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba had defected.
  • Among Ri Il-kyu’s jobs at the embassy was to block North Korea’s rival South Korea and old ally Cuba from forging diplomatic ties
  • Details on North Koreans defections often take months to come to light, with defectors needing to be cleared by authorities and going through a course of education about South Korean society and systems.
  • “Every North Korean thinks at least once about living in South Korea. Disillusionment with the North Korean regime and a bleak future led me to consider defection,” he told the paper.
  • “In fact, North Koreans yearn for reunification even more than South Koreans. Everyone believes that reunification is the only way for their children to have a better future. Today, the Kim Jong-un regime has brutally extinguished even the slightest hope left among the people.”
  • He said he flew out of Cuba with his family but he did not elaborate further on how he pulled off the high-risk escape.

Read the original article by clicking here.