North Korea executed its former top nuclear envoy to the US and four other foreign ministry officials in March after a failed summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo reported.
Kim Hyok-chol, who led working-level negotiations for the February summit in Hanoi, was executed by firing squad after being charged with espionage after allegedly being co-opted by the US, the newspaper said yesterday, citing an unidentified source.
The move was part of an internal purge Kim Jong-un undertook after the summit broke down without any deal, it said.
Speculation has swirled for months about the fate of Kim Hyok-chol, who has not received any recent mentions in state media dispatches.
Previous South Korean media reports about senior North Korean officials being executed following the talks have proven false.
Kim Jong-un’s top aide, Kim Yong-chol, who was also involved in the summit, is reportedly undergoing hard labor, according to the Chosun Ilbo report.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House would not confirm the report, and advised media not to jump to conclusions.
“We think that hasty judgement or commenting on this situation is not appropriate,” it said.
Acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters in Singapore that he could not confirm Kim Hyok-chol’s execution.
Talks between the US and North Korea have stalled since the Vietnam summit, with no plans to get them back under way.
US Special Representative to North Korea Stephen Biegun plans to meet with Japanese and South Korean negotiators today and tomorrow in Singapore.
The February summit collapsed abruptly, with Trump calling off the talks.
Kim Jong-un might have gone into the summit with a faulty assessment from his team of Washington’s position and got caught flat-footed without a “Plan B” after Trump rejected North Korea’s disarmament offer, said Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow in Seoul for the Center for a New American Security.
If the Chosun report is true, it could mean more delays for the sputtering nuclear talks, she said.
A career diplomat from an elite North Korean family, Kim Hyok-chol made his international debut a few weeks before the Hanoi summit as Pyongyang’s new point man for nuclear negotiations, taking diplomats by surprise.
He became North Korea’s ambassador to Spain from 2015.
Two years later, Madrid expelled him in retaliation for North Korean nuclear and missile tests.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique