South Korea celebrated its inaugural Defectors’ Day on 14 July, in honour of the 34,000 North Koreans who have made their home there. Within hours, news broke that one of Pyongyang’s senior diplomats had joined them. Ri Il-kyu, who had been a political counsellor in Cuba, is the highest-level defector since 2016, when North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain vanished from London and surfaced in Seoul. Mr Ri said that he was motivated by disillusionment with the regime, though frustrated ambition seems to have contributed.
Such insiders can bring valuable insight into political life and events in Pyongyang. Any such information is especially welcome when the North has deliberately increased its isolation and opacity, and when there are growing concerns about its burgeoning arms-for-oil relationship with Russia and advances in its weapons programme. George Robertson, head of the new Labour government’s defence review, warned last Tuesday that a “deadly quartet” of nations – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – are acting together against the west.
