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| Ko Young-hwan, who worked as a North Korean diplomat before defecting to South Korea in 1991, attends a seminar on the 2023 Report on North Korean Human Rights in Seoul, July 11. Ko will be named as a special aide to Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, according to government officials familiar with the matter. Newsis |
By Jung Min-ho
A North Korean diplomat-turned-defector will be appointed as a special aide to Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, The Korea Times has learned.
According to two government officials familiar with the matter, Ko Young-hwan, who had worked as a North Korean diplomat in Africa for more than 10 years before defecting to South Korea in 1991, will help the minister formulate North Korea policies.
The decision is expected to be announced in two weeks as part of other reforms involving the unification ministry. Last month, President Yoon Suk Yeol called for change, saying the ministry should no longer operate like "a support department for North Korea." Soon afterward, Vice Minister Moon Seung-hyun said the ministry was preparing for a sweeping reshuffle.
Speaking to The Korea Times and several other outlets on Wednesday, Kim said the ministry has so far been passive in dealing with Pyongyang due to concerns that any policy it comes up with might irritate the North Korean regime ― and, therefore, hurt inter-Korean relations as well as the prospect of unification.
This will soon change, according to the new minister. If the North violates human rights with new measures such as a ban on, say, K-pop, the ministry should be able to say that it is wrong and unacceptable, Kim said.
Ko's ample experience in North Korea's diplomatic circles and elite groups is expected to help the minister understand how his rights-focused policy would affect the regime as well as the international discourse on North Korea.
He started his career in 1979 and worked in central and east Africa, including the North Korean Embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Zaire), while interpreting French for late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il a few times in his meetings with French-speaking African leaders.
With the planned appointment, Ko joins a list of other North Korean defectors filling positions at the government or its agencies under the Yoon administration.
In June, Lee Han-byeol, 40, a rights advocate who escaped North Korea in 1999, became the first defector to join the National Human Rights Commission of Korea as one of its seven non-standing commissioners.
The same month, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs announced that Kim Geum-hyok, 31, a member of a Pyongyang elite family who defected to South Korea in 2012, would become a policy assistant to Minister Park Min-shik.
This trend is expected to continue under the current administration.
In his speech during Wednesday's press conference on North Korean escapees detained in China, the unification minister said he would welcome all North Koreans who wish to come to the South, where they would be treated fairly and equally just like their South Korean compatriots.
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