SEOUL \u2013 More high-level North Korean diplomats are waiting to defect to South Korea from their overseas posts in Europe, Pyongyang\u2019s former deputy ambassador to London said Tuesday, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Thae Yong Ho defected to South Korea in August last year and since December 2016 has been speaking to local media and appearing on variety television shows to discuss his defection to Seoul and his life as a North Korean envoy.
\u201cA significant number of North Korean diplomats came to South Korea recently,\u201d Thae said, according to Yonhap.
\u201cI am not the only one from Europe. There are more waiting to come,\u201d Thae said, speaking at an event held in South Korea\u2019s parliamentary building.
Thae, 54, has said publicly that dissatisfaction with the rule of young leader Kim Jong Un had led him to flee his post, but he also had two university-age sons living with him and his wife in London who were due to return to isolated North Korea.
He is the highest-ranking official to have fled North Korea for the South since the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang Yop, the brains behind North Korea\u2019s governing ideology, \u201cJuche,\u201d which combines Marxism with extreme nationalism.
\u201cOf all the recent high-level defectors, I am the only one to have gone public,\u201d said Thae.
Thae\u2019s comments came after North Korea unleashed a storm of criticism denouncing outgoing U. S. President Barack Obama for blacklisting Kim\u2019s sister over human rights abuses, urging him to concentrate on \u201cpacking\u201d as he exits the White House.
The U. S. Treasury Department last week added seven individuals \u2014 among them Kim\u2019s younger sister Yo-jong \u2014 to America\u2019s growing list of North Koreans sanctioned for \u201cserious\u201d rights abuses.
The Treasury announcement came as the U. S. State Department released a report on rights abuses in North Korea, which it said were among the worst in the world.
\u201cObama would be well advised not to waste time taking issue with other\u2019s \u2018human rights issue\u2019 but make good arrangements for packing in the White House,\u201d state news agency KCNA said in a commentary late Monday night.
Obama had created \u201cthe worst human rights situation in the U. S. during his tenure,\u201d it added. \u201cHe had better repent of the pain and misfortune he has brought to so many Americans and other people of the world.\u201d
Nuclear-armed North Korea has carried out a series of atomic tests and missile launches during Obama\u2019s time in office, and been subject to increasingly strict United Nations sanctions as a result.
Washington has long pursued a policy of \u201cstrategic patience\u201d \u2014 essentially a refusal to engage in any significant dialogue unless Pyongyang makes some tangible commitment to denuclearization.
The KCNA commentary slammed the Obama administration\u2019s \u201cextreme hostile moves\u201d against Pyongyang, which it said only bolstered the country\u2019s \u201cmilitary capability to mercilessly wipe out aggressors.\u201d
U. S. president-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Friday, has yet to clearly state his policy on the isolated state, although he has tweeted that Pyongyang developing ballistic missile capabilities to threaten the U. S. mainland \u201cwon\u2019t happen\u201d.
In his New Year\u2019s speech Kim did not specifically refer to the incoming U. S. administration, but called on Washington to make a \u201cresolute decision to withdraw its anachronistic hostile North Korea policy.\u201d<\/p>\n