MADRID – The son of a married couple of prominent South Korean deserters who moved to North Korea in the 1980s has traveled over the weekend to Pyongyang to establish their residence there.
Choe In Guk is the son of former South Korean Foreign Minister Choe Tok Sin, who fled in 1986 to North Korea with his wife, Ryu Mi Yong, leaving his five sons in South Korea.
Choe Tok Sin was a minister during the sixties and moved to the United States in 1976, before traveling in the eighties to Pyongyang, where he was ‘number two’ of an agency in charge of inter-Korean affairs and leader of the Chondoist party. Chongu
Choe died in 1989 in the Asian country. Ryu, who died in 2016 at age 95, was later president of the central committee of the aforementioned party.
The Uriminzokkiri portal, a Pyongyang propaganda agency, has reported that Choe In Guk has arrived in the capital for its “permanent residence” in the country. If confirmed, it would be one of the few cases in which a South Korean defends the North.
According to the aforementioned website, Choe said after arriving at the Pyongyang airport that he would work to achieve national unification, as was the “wish” of his parents.
The South Korean government has not yet ruled on the travel of 73-year-old Choe, who would not have sought Seoul’s authorization to travel, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. (EUROPE PRESS).
