hankyoreh

Jo Song-gil

Jo Song-gil, 44, the North Korean chargé d'affaires to Italy who has reportedly been in hiding since Nov. 2018, is receiving the protection of the Italian government authorities and seeking asylum in the US, not South Korea, a new report says.

In its Jan. 4 edition, Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica quoted a diplomatic source in Rome as saying that Jo had asked the Italian authorities for assistance and protection after leaving the embassy and was currently waiting for asylum in the US.

According to this newspaper, the chargé d'affaires requested the Italian government for help shortly after leaving the North Korean embassy in Italy in mid-November. Since then, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and other government officials have taken steps to protect Jo and have been in close communication with the US to arrange Jo’s asylum there. But Jo has apparently been placed in an awkward position by the revelation of his asylum plans by a report in a South Korean daily newspaper on Jan. 3.

Some analysts think this incident will have an impact of some kind on North Korea-US relations leading up to the second summit between the two countries. North Korea has been alert to the possibility of its diplomats defecting while working overseas. When Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean minister to the UK who defected to South Korea in Aug. 2016, wrote several columns about North Korea-US relations, North Korea expressed its displeasure in crude language.

In an interview with the La Repubblica, former Italian senator Antonio Razzi, who reportedly has a close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said he found it hard to believe that Jo, a taciturn, cautious and apparently strongly patriotic man, would have left his post. Razzi speculated that he must have been motivated by his desire to give his two children a good upbringing.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]