Published: Less than 20 min ago
North Korea’s former foreign minister Ri Yong-Ho was targeted for political purge – but it is unclear if he has been executed, according to South Korea’s intelligence service.
According to sources published by one of Japan’s largest newspapers, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Ri was executed sometime last year. What is clear is that he has not been seen in public since December 2019 and that he was formally poked and replaced the following month.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has shared what it knows about the matter with a committee in the National Assembly. It is confirmed that he has been cleared, but not that he has been executed, South Korean media such as Yonhap news agency and Chosun Ilbo newspaper report. Nor was anything new said about why he would have been poked.
Experienced diplomat Ri Yong-Ho was appointed foreign minister in 2016 and played an important role in North Korea’s negotiations with the Trump administration in the United States. In connection with these, Ri also visited Stockholm, where he met Sweden’s then Foreign Minister Margot Wallström (S) in a closed manner. Ri was also stationed at the North Korean embassy in Stockholm for a few years in the 80s.
It is not unusual for political figures to fall out of favor and be punished with death in the dictatorship of North Korea, but there are rarely any official announcements made about it.