A senior North Korean diplomat who disappeared from Italy in late 2018 has been living secretly in South Korea since July of last year, members of the intelligence committee of the South Korean parliament said Wednesday.
The diplomat, Jo Song Gil, then 48, was North Korea’s acting ambassador to Rome when he and his wife disappeared days before he was scheduled to return home to Pyongyang in November 2018. His whereabouts had since remained a mystery, prompting speculation that he had become one of the most senior diplomats to desert the totalitarian North.
The revelation about Jo could further aggravate North-South relations, which have been in a downward spiral for months after the North blew up a jointly run liaison office and its troops killed a South Korean government official during a sea patrol.
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