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Jo Song-gil, the acting North Korean ambassador to Italy who disappeared in November 2018, holds a model of “Bell of Peace of Rovereto” at an event in San Pietro di Feletto, near Treviso, northern Italy, on Mar. 20, 2018. (AP/Yonhap News)

Long after the fact, reports have surfaced that Jo Song-gil, North Korea’s former acting ambassador to Italy, arrived in South Korea in July 2019 following his mysterious disappearance from Italy in November 2018. Jeon Hae-cheol, lawmaker with the Democratic Party on the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, said on Oct. 7 that “Jo came to South Korea in July 2019 of his own free will.”

Jeon’s comments came after Ha Tae-keung, the main opposition People Power Party’s senior member on the committee, said on the evening of Oct. 6 that he’d learned that Jo "entered South Korea in July of last year and that authorities appear to be providing him asylum."

Despite the revelation that a former high-ranking North Korean diplomat has defected to South Korea, Jo’s actions and the circumstances lead some to predict that his defection will only have a limited impact on inter-Korean relations.

The South Korean government hasn’t confirmed Jo’s presence in South Korea either officially or unofficially. That’s in line with the government’s policy of neither announcing nor officially confirming whether specific North Korean defectors are residing in the South. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha had little to say on the subject during the parliamentary audit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Wednesday. “The Foreign Ministry adequately performed its role, but I’m not able to provide a detailed response. This isn’t something we can confirm publicly,” she said.

Jo and his wife left the North Korean embassy in Italy on Nov. 10, 2018, shortly before they were supposed to return to the North, and their whereabouts had been unknown until now. Despite holding the rank of first secretary, Jo had been serving as acting ambassador at the embassy since the Italian government expelled then Ambassador Mun Jong-nam in connection with UN sanctions imposed after the North’s sixth nuclear test in September 2017. The Italian Foreign Ministry reported in February 2019 that Jo’s daughter had been repatriated to North Korea.

Some newspapers have said that Jo represents the highest-ranking North Korean to defect since Hwang Jang-yop and described this as a major incident that could have serious consequences for inter-Korean relations, but some fact checking is in order. As a first secretary, Jo was lower in rank than Thae Young-ho, the lawmaker with the People Power Party who defected to South Korea while serving as a minister at North Korea’s embassy in the UK. “Acting ambassador” is not a rank but a temporary assignment. “When an ambassador’s post is vacant, North Korea temporarily assigns a lower-ranking official to be ‘acting ambassador,’” said a source who is familiar with North Korean diplomacy.

In descending order, the hierarchy at North Korean embassies consists of ambassador, minister, councilor, and secretary. But another source noted that “embassies are frequently operated with just three or four diplomats in the ranks of ambassador and secretary without a minister or councilor because of inadequate budgets.”

“Jo Song-gil was not a high-level diplomat, but a working-level diplomat. If there’s something that sets him apart from other defectors, it’s that he was an official diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, and few of them have ever defected to the South,” the source said.

It may also be rash to assume that Jo’s presence in South Korea will be a major factor for inter-Korean relations. In particular, the behavior of Jo and the South Korean government differs considerably from what happened after Thae Young-ho’s defection.

The news of Thae’s arrival in South Korea was widely promoted in the press. On Aug. 17, 2016, the spokesperson for the Unification Ministry under then President Park Geun-hye held an official press conference and described Thae as “the highest-ranking North Korean defector to have ever defected.” Since then, Thae has become a prominent public figure and a vocal critic of North Korea.

In contrast, both Jo himself and the South Korean government have remained silent during the 15 months since he arrived in the South in July 2019. Jo has reportedly not even announced himself to the defector community in the South. Jo appears to have remained in such strict seclusion with the hope of minimizing mistreatment for family members still in North Korea, including his young daughter, who was repatriated to the North.

Experts also say that the Moon Jae-in administration has no reason to exploit Jo’s defection in domestic politics, given Moon’s efforts to improve inter-Korean relations. Moon held three summits with the North Korean leader in 2018, and he has publicly disavowed the idea of achieving unification by absorbing North Korea into the South Korean system.

“Since both Jo and the government have kept quiet and acted with caution, I don’t think his defection, even if officially confirmed, will have a major negative impact on inter-Korean relations,” said a former high-ranking government official.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Kim Ji-eun and Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporters

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