SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – North Korea has purged its vice foreign minister as punishment for the recent defection of the nuclear-armed country’s deputy ambassador to Britain, South Korean media reported Wednesday.
The mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo, quoting an anonymous source familiar with North Korean affairs, said that Kung Sok-Ung had been removed from his post and expelled from Pyongyang to a rural farming area with his family.
It said the purge was ordered by supreme leader Kim Jong-Un following the defection of the North’s deputy ambassador to Britain, Thae Yong-Ho, and his family to the South two months ago.