Elite defector tells BBC that Kim Jong Un wants Trump back

An individual conversant in the scenario stated Donald Trump’s return to the White Home can be a “once-in-a-lifetime alternative” for North Korea.

Ri Il-gyu is probably the most high-profile defector to flee North Korea since 2016 and has confronted Kim Jong-un seven instances.

The previous diplomat who labored in Cuba When he fled to South Korea with his family in November last yearHe admitted that he was “trembling with nerves” when he first met Kim Jong-un.

However each time he had a gathering, he discovered that the chief was “smiling and in a great temper.”

“He typically compliments others and laughs. He looks like an peculiar particular person,” Mr. Li stated. However he has little question that Kim Jong-un will do no matter it takes to make sure his personal survival, together with killing all 25 million individuals: “He may have been an exquisite man and father, however turning him right into a god turned him right into a horrible particular person. exist.

In an hours-long interview with the BBC, Mr Lee supplied a uncommon understanding of what the world’s most secretive and repressive nation hopes to realize.

He stated that though talks between Trump and Kim Jong Un collapsed in 2019, North Korea nonetheless views Trump as somebody who can negotiate on its nuclear weapons program.

Trump has beforehand praised his relationship with Kim Jong Un as a key achievement of his presidency. He famously stated that two individuals “fell in love” via letters. Simply final month, he informed a rally that Kim Jong Un wished to see him return to workplace: “If you wish to know the reality, I feel he misses me.”

Mr Lee stated North Korea hopes to use such shut private ties to its personal benefit, contradicting Pyongyang’s official assertion final month that it “would not care” who turns into president.

Mr Lee stated the nuclear-armed nation would by no means do away with its weapons and will search a deal to freeze its nuclear program in alternate for lifting US sanctions

However he stated Pyongyang wouldn’t negotiate in good religion. Agreeing to freeze its nuclear program “can be a tactic, one hundred pc deception,” he stated, including that it was a “harmful strategy” that “will solely result in North Korea’s elevated power.”

Eight months after defecting, Ri Il-kyu now lives together with his household within the South Korean capital, Seoul. Accompanied by a police bodyguard and two intelligence officers, he defined his determination to desert the federal government.

Mr Lee stated years of corruption, bribes and an absence of freedom he confronted had left him in hassle, lastly reaching his breaking level when his request to journey to Mexico for surgical procedure for a herniated cervical disc was denied. “I stay in North Korea as one of many richest 1%, but it surely’s nonetheless worse than a middle-class household in South Korea.”

Mr Li earned simply $500 (£294) a month as a diplomat in Cuba, so he would illegally promote Cuban cigars in China to earn sufficient cash to assist his household.

When he first informed his spouse that he wished to defect, she was so upset that she ended up in hospital with a coronary heart assault. He thereafter saved his plans secret, sharing them together with her and his kids solely six hours earlier than the flight.

He described it as a “life or dying gamble.” Atypical North Koreans discovered to be defecting are sometimes tortured for a number of months after which launched, he stated. “However for elites like us, there are solely two outcomes: both imprisonment in a political jail camp or execution by firing squad.”

“The worry and worry had been overwhelming. I may settle for my very own dying, however I could not bear the considered my household being dragged into the Gulag,” he stated. Though Mr. Li by no means believed in God, as he nervously waited on the airport gate in the course of the night time, he started to hope.

The final recognized high-profile defection to South Korea was that of Tae Yong-ho in 2016. recently named The brand new chief of the Korean Presidential Unification Advisory Council.

Referring to North Korea’s latest shut ties with Russia, Ri Yong Ho stated the struggle in Ukraine was a blessing for Pyongyang. The USA and South Korea estimate that North Korea has offered tens of millions of rounds of ammunition to Moscow to assist its invasion in alternate for meals, gasoline and presumably navy know-how.

Mr Lee stated the deal’s most important profit for Pyongyang was the power to proceed creating its nuclear weapons.

He stated that via the settlement, Russia created a “loophole” in robust worldwide sanctions towards North Korea, permitting North Korea to “freely develop nuclear weapons and missiles and strengthen its defenses whereas bypassing the necessity to ask North Korea for assist.” Raise sanctions.”

However Mr Lee stated Kim understood the connection was non permanent and that Russia may sever ties after the struggle. Because of this, Mr. Lee stated, Kim Jong Un has not given up on the US.

“North Korea understands that its solely option to survive, to remove the specter of invasion and to develop its financial system is to normalize relations with the US.”

Whereas Russia could have given North Korea non permanent reduction from its financial ache, Mr Lee stated North Korea’s full border closure in the course of the pandemic “severely broken the nation’s financial system and other people’s lives”.

Mr Lee stated that when the border reopened in 2023 and diplomats ready to return, North Korean households requested them to “convey every thing you may have, even your used toothbrush, as a result of North Korea has nothing left”.

North Korea’s leaders demand full loyalty from their residents and the slightest dissent can lead to jail time. However Mr Lee stated years of hardship had eroded individuals’s loyalty as a result of nobody now anticipated to get something from their “Supreme Chief” Kim Jong Un.

“There is no such thing as a longer true loyalty to the regime or to Kim Jong Un, it’s a compelled loyalty and one should be loyal or face dying,” he stated.

The latest adjustments have been largely pushed by an inflow of South Korean movies, dramas and music which have been smuggled into North Korea the place they’re unlawful to observe and hearken to.

“Individuals do not watch Korean content material as a result of they’ve capitalist beliefs and so they simply wish to go the time in a monotonous and bleak life,” Mr. Lee stated, however then they begin asking, “Why are Koreans nonetheless alive?” whereas we live Life in a primary world nation and we’re poor”?

However Mr Lee stated that whereas South Korean content material was altering North Korea, it might not result in its collapse due to the prevailing management system. “Kim Jong Un is aware of very effectively that loyalty is waning and individuals are evolving, and that is why he is intensifying his reign of terror,” he stated.

The federal government has launched legal guidelines to severely punish those that devour and distribute Korean content material. this BBC interviews a defector Final yr, he stated he witnessed somebody being executed after sharing Korean music and TV exhibits.

Mr Lee stated North Korea’s determination late final yr to desert its decades-old coverage of eventual reunification with South Korea was an try to additional isolate the South Korean individuals.

He described this as Kim Jong Un’s “most evil act” as a result of all North Koreans dream of reunification. He stated that whereas North Korea’s previous leaders “stole individuals’s freedom, cash and human rights, Kim Jong Un stole the one factor that they had left: hope.”

Outdoors North Korea, Kim Jong Un’s well being has been a supply of concern, with some believing his untimely dying may set off the regime’s collapse. Earlier this week, South Korean intelligence companies estimated Kim Jong-un’s weight at 140 kilograms, placing him in danger for heart problems.

However Mr. Lee believes that surveillance and management methods are actually so subtle that Kim Jong-un’s dying is not going to pose a menace to the authoritarian regime. “One other evil chief will simply take his place,” he stated.

It’s extensively speculated Mr. Kim is grooming his little daughterZhu Ai was considered his successor, however Mr Li dismissed the concept.

He stated Joo lacked the legitimacy and status to grow to be North Korea’s chief, particularly because the sacred Paektu bloodline utilized by the Kim household to justify their rule is believed to exist solely among the many males of the household.

Mr. Li stated individuals had been initially fascinated by Zhu Ai, however not anymore. They questioned why she took half in missile assessments like different kids as an alternative of going to high school and wore luxurious designer garments as an alternative of a college uniform.

Mr Lee stated the worldwide neighborhood, together with North Korea’s allies China and Russia, should come collectively to “persevere in persuading North Korea to vary” fairly than look forward to Kim to fall in poor health or die.

“That is the one factor that may finish the North Korean dictatorship,” he added.

Mr. Li hopes that his defection will encourage his colleagues to not betray themselves however to advertise small adjustments inside. He had no lofty ambitions, wanting North Koreans to have the ability to vote or journey, simply that they may select what jobs to take, have sufficient to eat, and be capable of share their opinions freely amongst mates.

However for now, his first precedence is to assist his household adapt to their new life in South Korea and combine their kids into society.

On the finish of our interview, he proposed a state of affairs. “Think about that I give you an journey and let you know that if we succeed, we are going to win an ideal victory, but when we fail, it is going to imply dying.

“You would not agree, would you? Effectively, it was a alternative I imposed on my household, and so they silently agreed and adopted me,” he stated.

“This can be a debt I’ve to repay all through my life.”