South Korea dismissed media reports on Thursday that a North Korean general has defected to the South amid speculation that the North’s officials have sought asylum in fear of its leader’s reign of terror.
Local media outlets have reported that about 10 mid-ranking North Korean officials have sought to defect to South Korea or a third country not to be purged or punished amid North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s brutal rule.
A ranking North Korean military officer, presumed to be Park Sung-won, a former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, also joined in such moves, they reported.
But an official of the Unification Ministry denies such reports, saying that the rumor over a North Korean general’s defection is “groundless.”
The remarks came one day after North Korea publicly denied such speculation, calling South Korean media’s reports “sheer lies.”
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| North Korea (Yonhap) |
The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday that the general officer whom the South’s conservative media described as a North Korean defector is now commanding a construction project at the Masikryong Ski Resort in the North.
Gen. Park, who served as a deputy chief of the General Staff of the KPA in 1995, received a medal of honor in 2014 due to his contribution to the building of the ski resort on the North’s east coast.
North Korea also dismissed speculation that it has executed its party or military officials.
The KCNA said that “false propaganda” by the South Korean media is aimed at “creating impressions in the world community that there are uneasiness and horror in the North in a bid to tarnish North Korea’s image and break its solid single-minded unity.”
South Korea’s state spy agency earlier said that the North’s leader Kim has tightened his grip on his power base in a brutal way, including the execution of about 70 senior officials.
In late 2013, the North’s leader ordered the execution of Jang Song-thaek, the husband of Kim’s aunt and once the country’s second most powerful official, on charges of treason. The North’s former defense chief Hyun Yong-chol is believed to have been executed in April for his disloyalty toward Kim. (Yonhap)
