WNAM REPORT: A North Korean diplomat who had been stationed in Cuba defected to South Korea last year, South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday, the latest in a small but growing number of defections by North Koreans in elite groups.
The National Intelligence Service confirmed a media report that Ri Il-gyu, who had served as the counselor of political affairs at the North’s embassy in Cuba, entered South Korea in November with his family. It did not provide further details.
The defection came as efforts were under way for South Korea to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba. In February, the two countries forged formal ties in a surprise move widely seen as a setback to North Korea, which has long boasted about its brotherly ties with the Caribbean country.
Ri, 52, is believed to be a veteran diplomat who served stints spanning around nine years in Cuba after joining the North’s foreign ministry in 1999. His latest stint reportedly involved stopping Havana from forging official diplomatic ties with Seoul, according to an interview published by Chosun Ilbo.
The report said Ri was commended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his duty in Cuba.
But he was quoted as saying that he made the decision to defect out of frustration and anger over what he called an unfair work evaluation at the North’s foreign ministry and its refusal of his request to receive medical treatment in Mexico.
Ri is the first North Korean diplomat known to have defected to South Korea since Ryu Hyun-woo arrived in Seoul in September 2019 after serving as an acting chief of North Korea’s embassy in Kuwait. In July 2019, Jo Song-gil, former North Korean acting ambassador to Italy, came to South Korea.
Tae Yong-ho, former North Korean deputy ambassador to Britain, fled to the South in 2016 in a high-profile defection by a ranking North Korean diplomat.
Tae, who served as a lawmaker in 2020-24 in South Korea, described Ri as a “Cuba expert” who compiled many documents on Latin American issues reported to the North Korean leader, and welcomed his arrival.
“I hope that we, former North Korean diplomats, work together for reunification to make come true North Korean officials’ and residents’ dream for their children to live freely in the Republic of Korea,” Tae said in a statement, expecting more North Korean diplomats to defect going forward.
In 2023, South Korea saw the number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South reach 196, a near threefold jump from the previous year, amid a rise in defections by North Korean diplomats and trade officials, according to government data.
An official at the unification ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs said the number of such defectors with elite backgrounds came to around 10 last year, the highest since 2017, without providing comparable figures.
North Korean diplomats stationed at the country’s overseas missions and officials engaged in trade affairs are believed to have chosen to flee their oppressive home country, as they are under pressure to send hard currency to the regime.
In November, North Korea’s foreign ministry said it is restructuring its overseas missions to boost diplomatic efficiency, which Seoul’s unification ministry assessed as being affected by the North’s faltering economy, worsened by the U.N. sanctions on its nuclear and missile programs.
South Korea has a longstanding policy of accepting any North Korean defectors who want to live in the South and repatriating any North Koreans who stray into the South if they want to return.
