Shut out of North Korea, many news organizations want to believe the worst about the country ruled by Kim Jong-un.
Last week, for example, Chosun Ilbo, a conservative South Korean daily, reported that Kim had ordered the execution of former nuclear envoy Kim Hyok-chol, and imprisoned former spymaster, Kim Yong-chol.
The alleged reason: the failure of Kim’s summit meeting with President Trump in February. The source: one unnamed official quoted by a conservative daily that has consistenly opposed to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s efforts to coax Kim Jong-un and President Trump into a denuclearization agreement.
Bloomberg News picked up the story. Reuters repeated it. CBS picked up the story but noted Chosun Ilbo’s reporting has been erroneous in the past. Was Kim Hyok-chol dead? “Maybe. Maybe not,” said CBS. The New York Times questioned whether Kim Yong-chol had been banished to a labor camp but said the men had been purged.
While expressing doubts about the Chosun Ilbo story, Daily Beast reporter Gordon Chang used it to suggest five North Korean negotiators might have been executed and to discredit the whole idea of nuclear negotiations.
This increasingly evident turmoil undercuts the notion, advanced by Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, that Kim can negotiate in good faith on a range of issues from denuclearization to inter-Korean reconciliation.
This week the story fell apart.
Kim Yong-chol, the former chief of North Korean intelligence, appeared in public. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Monday included Kim Yong-chol’s name on a list of officials who accompanied Kim Jong-un to an art performance given by the wives of military officers on Sunday.
Kim Yong-chol, it turns out, has not been arrested. He has merely fallen out of favor. His name was listed 10th among 12 officials named by the state-run news media. In North Korea that is understood to mean he has been demoted. But he’s not in prison nor was he executed.
Kim Hyok-Chol has not been seen in public but Chosun Ilbo’s story that he has been executed cannot be considered reliable. You shouldn’t believe the worst about North Korea, especially if the source is hostile to the nuclear negotiations.
Source: North Korean Official Blamed for Failed Trump Summit Reappears in Public – The New York Times
