NIS says North's Ri Yong-ho was purged, possibly executed

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was purged, but it isn’t clear if he was executed.

Kim Kyou-hyun, head of the National Intelligence Service, center and top NIS officials at the National Assembly on Thursday to brief lawmakers on key issues. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was purged, but it isn’t clear if he was executed.

Ri played a key role in the summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019.

Ri’s situation was reported by the NIS to legislators on the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

An official who attended the briefing said the NIS did not describe the reasons for Ri’s downfall.

Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun reported recently that Ri might have been executed last year for unspecific reasons.

After a successful summit in Singapore, the meeting between Kim and Trump collapsed with no progress made. Although the two leaders met again in Panmunjom on the border between the two Koreas four months later, relations between Pyongyang and Washington never recovered.

“Since being summoned to the State Affairs Commission in April 2020, there has been not a single mention of Ri,” an official at the South Korean Unification Ministry said Thursday.

The NIS also reported that North Korean leader Kim is showing strong signs of extending the Kim family’s dynastic rule through his children. However, the intelligence agency hinted that the possibility of daughter Kim Ju-ae, who is between nine and 10 years old, taking over North Korea after her father is unlikely.

“The reason he is taking her around is interpreted as being a demonstration of his strong determination for a hereditary succession,” said a lawmaker on the committee.

Another issue raised in the briefing Thursday was a controversial accusation that Chinese restaurant and its owner operated as a kind of unauthorized Chinese police station in Korea.

Dongfang Mingzhu, a floating restaurant on the Han River in Jamsil, Seoul, is accused by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) of being used to track down Chinese against the rule of Xi Jinping and force them back to China.

According to a legislator who attended the briefing, the NIS said that it considers most of the recent statement by the owner of the restaurant, Wang Haijun, to be false.

“The NIS is looking deeply into specific details especially violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and violations of the Immigration Act,” the official said.

Wang said in a press briefing on Dec. 29 that his restaurant is nothing more than a restaurant and is operating legally. He held another briefing on Dec. 31.

“I have been running business normally, until the secret police reports [by local news media],” Wang said. "I have lived in Korea for nearly 20 years. I don’t know what in the world these media outlets want.”

Safeguard Defenders, a nongovernmental human rights organization, claimed earlier this month that a local-level public security bureau based in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, was running at least one police station in Korea, though it couldn’t confirm its exact location.

The group claimed that the Overseas Chinese Service Center is closely working with the Chinese police. Wang admitted that he runs the center in Seoul.

He said the center did send roughly 10 or so Chinese back to the mainland. However, he added that these were Chinese who either were in an “unexpected” situation such as getting ill or died.

He denied that they were forced to return to China, stressing that the center did not have the right or ability to do so.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]