Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean minister, has been appointed as the new head of South Korea’s national advisory committee on unity.
In addition to the hundreds who have resettled in the South, he is the first to receive a vice-ministerial work.
Tae, 62, was Pyongyang’s assistant ambassador to the United Kingdom before he fled to South Korea in 2016.
Pyongyang has denounced him as “human scum” and accused him of embezzling state funds and other crimes.
Mr Tae became the first former North Korean to get a chair in South Korea’s 2020 National Assembly.
In his new position, he will advise South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s department on calm Asian unity despite failing to win a second term in the April legislative elections.
The political office stated on Thursday that” He is the right person to support the establishment of a peaceful integration plan based on liberal democracy and win support from both domestic and international supporters.”
Mr. Tae, who was born in Pyongyang in 1962, was born at the age of 27 and worked under the leadership of three generations of the Kim dynasty for nearly 30 years.
He claimed in earlier statements that he had fled North Korea because he did n’t want his kids to lead “miserable lives.” He also praised South Korea’s politics and expressed disgust with Kim Jong Un’s plan.
Mr. Tae wrote about the abuses of the North Korean wealthy and the abyss of the Kim family worship in a narrative that was published this time.
Since his defection, he has advocated for the use of “soft power” to weaken the Kim regime and called for prisoner swaps between the North and the South.
In response to Pyongyang dumping tons of trash-carrying bubbles into the South, tensions between the Koreas have increased over the past several months. On Friday, Seoul resumed propaganda broadcasts toward the North.
Additionally, information based on satellite imagery suggest that North Korea perhaps be putting up walls along its southern border and strengthening its military might.
As of December last month, some 34, 000 people have defected from the North to the South, according to estimates from Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
Many do so by entering China first, next South Korea. They are automatically granted membership and are given some settlement funds in South Korea.
Earlier this week, Seoul’s spy agency cofirmed another high-profile defection of a former diplomat most recently stationed in Cuba.
Local media identified the man as 52-year-old Ri Il Kyu and quoted him as saying that he had fled due to “disillusionment with the Northern Korean government and a dark coming.”
According to him, “every North Korean considers moving to South Korea at least once,” according to the Chosun Ilbo news.
South Korea celebrated its very first North Korean Dissenters ‘ Day last Sunday, when Mr. Yoon Suk Yeol promised better financial help for dissenters and tax incentives for businesses that hire them.