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More high-level DPRK'S diplomats are waiting to defect to South Korea from their overseas posts in Europe, Pyongyang’s former deputy ambassador to London said on Tuesday, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
Thae Yong-ho defected to South Korea in August last year and since December 2016 has been speaking to local media and appearing on variety television shows to discuss his defection to Seoul and his life as a DPRK's envoy.
“A significant number of DPRK'S diplomats came to South Korea recently,” Thae said, according to Yonhap.
DPRK's leader Kim Jong-un (centre) is the main reason why officials want to leave, Thae claims. Photo: AFP
“I am not the only one from Europe. There are more waiting to come,” Thae said, speaking at an event held in South Korea’s parliamentary building.
Thae, 54, has said publicly that dissatisfaction with the rule of young leader Kim Jong-un had led him to flee his post, but he also had two university-age sons living with him and his wife in London who were due to return to isolated DPRK.
He is the highest-ranking official to have fled DPRK to the South since the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang-yop, the brains behind DPRK’s governing ideology “Juche”, which combines Marxism with extreme nationalism.
“Of all the recent high-level defectors, I am the only one to have gone public,” said Thae.
(REUTERS)
