North Korean authorities have reportedly executed the country’s former foreign minister Ri Yong Ho in 2021, Japanese media reported Wednesday.
The Japanese newspaper ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said that the North Korean politician would have been executed between summer and autumn of last year and said that four or five senior foreign ministry officials would also have been executed around the same time.
Sources close to the matter have revealed to the newspaper that the executions in question could be due to matters related to the North Korean Embassy in the United Kingdom since all of them, including Ri, worked for the diplomatic mission.
The South Korean Unification Ministry said it was «aware» of these reports and said it was conducting an investigation to corroborate or deny them.
Ri, who was appointed head of North Korean diplomacy in 2016, played an important role in the framework of negotiations between the country’s leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump at several summits in 2018 and 2019. Ri stepped down from the post in 2020.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
