SEOUL, Dec 3 (AFP) - A North Korean official overseeing a key provincial youth organisation has defected to South Korea, news reports said Friday.Chosun Ilbo daily quoted informed sources as saying Sol Jong-Sik, first secretary of the Kim Il-Sung Socialist Youth League committee in Ryanggang province, fled to the South in June last year.
Yonhap news agency quoted a government source as saying that a senior official from the provincial committee had defected, without giving the name.South Korea's National Intelligence Service declined to comment on the reports.
"Sol was one of the promising officials in their 30s and 40s who were being recruited for key posts" as North Korea paves the way for the succession of heir apparent Kim Jong-Un, one source told Chosun Ilbo.
"Sol's curiosity about the outside world and his fondness for South Korean-made TV dramas had got him into trouble," the source said.The league is named after the late founder of the hardline communist state. His son and current leader Kim Jong-Il is preparing for an eventual power transfer to his own son Jong-Un.
Sol's last public appearance in the North was in April last year when he attended celebrations for the re-appointment of Kim Jong-Il as head of the powerful National Defence Commission, Yonhap said.
Chosun quoted other sources as saying that a North Korean diplomat based in an unidentified Asian country and a trading company executive had also defected to the South.According to a leaked US diplomatic cable, South Korea's then foreign minister Yu Myung-Hwan told US officials in January 2010 that several senior North Korean officials working overseas had recently defected to the South.
Yu emphasised that the defections had not been made public, according to the cable leaked by the WikiLeaks website.He asserted that the succession was "not going smoothly" and that a botched currency reform had caused "big problems" for the communist regime.
More than 20,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Yonhap news agency quoted a government source as saying that a senior official from the provincial committee had defected, without giving the name.South Korea's National Intelligence Service declined to comment on the reports.
"Sol was one of the promising officials in their 30s and 40s who were being recruited for key posts" as North Korea paves the way for the succession of heir apparent Kim Jong-Un, one source told Chosun Ilbo.
"Sol's curiosity about the outside world and his fondness for South Korean-made TV dramas had got him into trouble," the source said.The league is named after the late founder of the hardline communist state. His son and current leader Kim Jong-Il is preparing for an eventual power transfer to his own son Jong-Un.
Sol's last public appearance in the North was in April last year when he attended celebrations for the re-appointment of Kim Jong-Il as head of the powerful National Defence Commission, Yonhap said.
Chosun quoted other sources as saying that a North Korean diplomat based in an unidentified Asian country and a trading company executive had also defected to the South.According to a leaked US diplomatic cable, South Korea's then foreign minister Yu Myung-Hwan told US officials in January 2010 that several senior North Korean officials working overseas had recently defected to the South.
Yu emphasised that the defections had not been made public, according to the cable leaked by the WikiLeaks website.He asserted that the succession was "not going smoothly" and that a botched currency reform had caused "big problems" for the communist regime.
More than 20,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Comments
Post a Comment