{"id":65642,"date":"2024-07-16T11:36:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T02:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/16\/north-korea-diplomat-flees-south-ri-il-kyu-cuba"},"modified":"2024-07-16T11:36:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T02:36:24","slug":"north-korea-diplomat-flees-to-south-in-highest-ranking-envoy-defection-since-2016-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=65642","title":{"rendered":"North Korea diplomat flees to South in highest ranking envoy defection since 2016 \u2013 report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ri Il-kyu was responsible for political affairs at Pyongyang\u2019s embassy in Cuba, the Chosun Ilbo daily has reported<\/p>\n<p>A senior North Korean diplomat based in Cuba defected to South Korea in November, the South Korean spy agency has said, becoming the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to escape to the South since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Without giving any further details, the National Intelligence Service confirmed an earlier report by the South Korean newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chosun.com\/english\/north-korea-en\/2024\/07\/16\/NTK6QOVZLZHLZGAHVBVCG3Q36I\/\">Chosun Ilbo<\/a>, which said that a counsellor responsible for political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba had defected.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/16\/north-korea-diplomat-flees-south-ri-il-kyu-cuba\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ri Il-kyu was responsible for political affairs at Pyongyang\u2019s embassy in Cuba, the Chosun Ilbo daily has reportedA senior North Korean diplomat based in Cuba defected to South Korea in November, the South Korean spy agency has said, becoming the highe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1018,40,222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-cuba","category-north-korea","category-south-korea"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65654,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65642\/revisions\/65654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}