Author: Our Foreign Staff / Source: The Telegraph
North Korea’s top diplomat in Italy has reportedly sought asylum in what would be another high-profile defection bid by one of Pyongyang’s envoys.
Jo Song-gil, the acting North Korean ambassador to Rome, applied for asylum to an unidentified Western country with his family, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo daily said on Thursday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Seoul.
“He sought asylum early last month,” the JoongAng quoted one source as saying.
Italian authorities were “agonising” over what to do, the official was quoted as saying, but added they were “protecting him in a safe place”.
The last senior North Korean diplomat to defect was Thae Yong-ho, who abandoned his post as deputy ambassador in London in 2016.
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