A high-level North Korean diplomat, Ri Il Kyu, defected to South Korea in November 2023 from Pyongyang's embassy in Cuba. This marks the highest-level defection from North Korea since 2016.
Ri, who was a political counselor at the embassy, shared his reasons for leaving North Korea with The Chosun Daily in an exclusive interview published on July 16, 2024. He expressed his disgust with the regime under Kim Jong Un and pessimism about its future.
Ri's decision to defect was influenced by several factors. He refused to pay a bribe to the deputy director of the Cuban mission, which led to unfair evaluations of his work. Additionally, he was denied permission to visit Mexico for treatment of nerve damage related to a spine injury, further enraging him and convincing him that leaving North Korea was the correct choice.
To prevent other defectors from following in his footsteps and maintaining Pyongyang's control over its diplomats, Ri declined to explain how he and his family managed to leave the country despite holding embassy passports. His function at the diplomatic mission was to work against normalizing South Korea's ties with Cuba.
Two other North Korean officials who had been assigned to negotiate with the United States during Kim Jong Un's summit talks with President Donald Trump were reportedly punished, according to Ri Il Kyu. One was executed and the other was sentenced to a penal colony. However, there is no independent confirmation of these allegations.
Ri Yong-ho, a former foreign minister who accompanied Kim Jong Un to his summit meetings with Trump, was sent to a prison camp in December 2019 on charges of collecting bribes from a North Korean diplomat in Beijing. Han Song-ryol, another deputy, was executed in February 2019 on charges of spying for the United States.
