Up to 20 high-ranking North Korean military officers and nuclear scientists have defected to the US and its allies under a plan involving several countries including the Pacific state of Nauru, an Australian newspaper said yesterday.
The defections began last October after 11 countries agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle North Koreans from China, The Weekend Australian said.
The man seen as the father of North Korea's nuclear program, Kyong Won-ha, was believed among the defectors, the newspaper said.
It said a US-based lawyer approached Nauru's former president, Rene Harris, with an offer to foot the bill for establishing Nauruan embassies in Washington and Beijing, ostensibly to boost trade ties with those countries.
But the real reason for the Beijing embassy was "to expedite the movement of these very important people," the paper said, citing Harris.
A former finance minister of Nauru, Kinza Clodumar, was quoted as saying he was briefed on what was dubbed "Operation Weasel" while with a Nauruan delegation in Washington in October.
"We were going to get a [North Korean] nuclear scientist and his family from a farm in China and then take them in a Nauru consulate car to an embassy," Clodumar said.
Some countries agreed to act as transit points for up to 30 days once the defectors left China, the paper said, citing "confidential documents and interviews with key players in Washington, the Pacific and North Asia."
But the paper said in the end, Nauru's diplomatic cover was not used to deliver defectors to safety.
The operation, which has now been wound up, was managed by Americans and New Zealanders operating at arm's length from their governments, the paper said.
Countries believed to have been involved include the US, Nauru, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Thailand, the Philippines and Spain, the report said.
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