Seoul: A senior North Korean official who had been reported as purged over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown by the state media Monday enjoying a concert near leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korean publications Monday showed Kim Yong Chol sitting five seats away from a clapping Kim Jong Un in the same row along with other top officials during a musical performance by the wives of Korean People’s Army officers.
Chol has been North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator and the counterpart of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo since Kim Jong Un entered nuclear talks with the US early last year. He traveled to Washington and met President Donald Trump twice before Kim’s two summits with the US President.
South Korean newspaper ‘Chosun Ilbo’ last week cited an unidentified source to report that Chol had been sentenced to hard labour and ideological re-education over the failed summit in Hanoi.
The newspaper also reported that senior envoy Kim Hyok Chol, who was involved in pre-summit working-level talks with American officials, was executed with four other officials from the North’s Foreign Ministry for betraying Kim Jong Un after being won over by the United States.
South Korea’s government and media have a mixed record on tracking developments among North Korea’s ruling elite, made difficult by Pyongyang’s stringent control of information about them.
Lee Sang-min, spokesman of Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, said the ministry would not comment on a ‘specific internal event in North Korea or its participants’ when asked about Chol’s reappearance in public.
Seoul’s spy service has said it could not confirm Friday’s report of a possible purge, while the presidential Blue House cautioned against ‘hasty judgments or comments’.
North Korea has previously executed scapegoats to atone for high-profile political flops. But while many experts believe Chol was pushed to a back seat in negotiations with the United States, there were doubts about the report of a purge.
AFP