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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/ubcstaffer123 on 2024-07-21 03:39:24+00:00.
Ex-North Korean diplomat made vice minister in South
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyj4xjkvweko
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tae, 62, was Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom before he fled to South Korea in 2016.Pyongyang has denounced him as “human scum” and accused him of embezzling state funds and other crimes.
“He is the right person to help establish a peaceful unification policy based on liberal democracy and garner support from home and abroad,” the presidential office said on Thursday.Born in Pyongyang in 1962, Mr Tae entered the foreign service at the age of 27 and spent almost 30 years working under three generations of the ruling Kim dynasty.He said in earlier statements that he left North Korea because he did not want his children to have “miserable lives”.
He also cited disgust with Kim Jong Un’s regime and expressed admiration for South Korea’s democracy.In a memoir published this year, Mr Tae wrote about the excesses of the North Korean elite and the depths of the personality cult built around the Kims.
Since his defection, he has advocated for the use of “soft power” to weaken the Kim regime and called for prisoner swaps between the North and the South.Tensions between the Koreas have risen over the past few months, with Seoul resuming propaganda broadcasts towards the North on Friday, in response to Pyongyang floating thousands of trash-carrying balloons into the South.
In South Korea, they automatically receive citizenship and are given some resettlement money.Earlier this week, Seoul’s spy agency cofirmed another high-profile defection of a former diplomat most recently stationed in Cuba.Local reports identified the man as 52-year-old Ri Il Kyu and quoted him as saying that he fled because of “disillusionment with the North Korean regime and a bleak future”.
“Every North Korean thinks at least once about living in South Korea,” the Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted him as saying.Last Sunday, South Korea marked its very first North Korean Defectors’ Day, during which Mr Yoon Suk Yeol promised better financial support for defectors and tax incentives for companies that hire them.
The original article contains 478 words, the summary contains 326 words. Saved 32%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!