North Korea Envoy Who Attended Trump Talks Purged, Lawmaker Says

Sangmi Cha and Jon Herskovitz
·2 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- The former North Korean foreign minister who was with Kim Jong Un when he held a summit in 2019 with then President Donald Trump has been purged, according to a South Korean lawmaker who sits on an intelligence committee.

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Ri Yong Ho, who led the foreign ministry from 2016 to about early 2020 and has not been mentioned in state media since, is no longer a part of the power structure in the state, Youn Kun-young told reporters Thursday after a briefing by the nation’s spy agency.

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It would not confirm a report in Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper from a day earlier saying that Ri had been executed after the summit in Hanoi was abruptly ended by Trump, who complained the North Koreans were demanding too much in negotiations about their nuclear program. The paper cited several people it did not name as saying Ri had been executed along with four or five other foreign ministry officials in connection with possible problems at the country’s UK embassy.

The outside world is often in the dark about the inner workings of top officials in the secretive and reclusive country, and reports of executions are often met with caution because a few been wrong. These include a false report in 2019 that former North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Hyok Chol was executed. Officials in South Korea said at the time Kim was alive and in custody.

The Chosun Ilbo erroneously reported singer Hyon Song Wol was executed in 2013. She was named as having attended a performance with Kim Jong Un several years later, according to state media Korea Central News Agency.

--With assistance from Shinhye Kang.

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