Kim Jong Un wants Trump back, elite defector tells BBC

Donald Trump’s return to the White House would be a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for North Korea, according to a person in a special position.

Ri Il Kyu is the highest-profile defector to flee North Korea since 2016 and has come face-to-face with Kim Jong Un seven times.

Former diplomat who worked in Cuba when he and his family fled to South Korea last November.admitted to “shaking with anxiety” the first time he met Kim Jong Un.

But in every meeting, he saw the leader always “smiling and happy”.

“He often compliments people and smiles. He seems like a normal person,” Mr. Ri said. But he has no doubt that Mr. Kim will do anything to ensure his survival, including killing all 25 million of his people: “He may be a great person and a father, but turning him into a god has turned him into a monstrous creature.”

In an hours-long interview with the BBC, Mr Ri gave a rare insight into what the world’s most secretive and repressive countries hope to achieve.

He said North Korea still sees Mr Trump as someone with whom it can negotiate over its nuclear weapons programme, even though talks between him and Kim Jong Un broke down in 2019.

Mr Trump has previously hailed his relationship with Kim as a major achievement of his presidency. He famously said the two “fell in love” during their correspondence. Just last month, he told a rally that Kim wanted him back in office: “I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth.”

Mr Ri said North Korea hoped to use this close personal relationship to its advantage, in contrast to Pyongyang’s official statement last month that it “doesn’t care” who becomes president.

Mr Ri said the nuclear state would never give up its weapons and would likely seek a deal to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for the United States lifting sanctions.

But he said Pyongyang would not negotiate in good faith. Agreeing to freeze its nuclear programme “would be a ruse, a 100% deception”, he said, adding that this was a “dangerous approach” that “would only lead to North Korea becoming stronger”.

Eight months after his defection, Ri Il Kyu is now living with his family in the South Korean capital Seoul. Accompanied by a police bodyguard and two intelligence agents, he explained his decision to abandon the government.

After years of being crushed by corruption, bribery and the lack of freedom he faced, Mr Ri said he was finally overthrown when his request to travel to Mexico for surgery on a herniated disc in his neck was denied. “I lived the life of the richest 1% in North Korea, but that was still worse than a middle-class family in the South.”

As a diplomat in Cuba, Mr Ri earned just $500 (£294) a month, so he had to illegally sell Cuban cigars in China to make ends meet for his family.

When he first told his wife about his desire to defect, she was so distraught that she was hospitalized with a heart attack. He then kept his plans a secret, only sharing them with her and their child six hours before their plane departed.

He described it as a “life-or-death gamble”. Ordinary North Koreans caught defecting are often tortured for several months, then released, he said. “But for elites like us, there are only two outcomes – life in a political prison camp, or being shot.”

“The fear and horror were too great. I could accept my own death, but I couldn’t bear the thought of my family being dragged off to a labor camp,” he said. Although Mr. Ri had never believed in God, as he waited anxiously at the airport gate in the middle of the night, he began to pray.

The last known high-profile defection to the South was that of Tae Yong-ho in 2016. Former deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, he newly named New head of South Korea’s presidential advisory council on unification.

Turning to North Korea’s recent relationship with Russia, Mr. Ri said the Ukraine war was a blessing in disguise for Pyongyang. The United States and South Korea estimate that North Korea sold Moscow millions of rounds of ammunition to support its invasion, in exchange for food, fuel and possibly even military technology.

Mr. Ri said the main benefit of the deal for Pyongyang was its ability to continue developing nuclear weapons.

With the deal, Russia created a “loophole” in the strict international sanctions against North Korea, allowing it “freedom to develop nuclear weapons and missiles and strengthen its defenses, while bypassing the need to appeal to the United States to ease sanctions,” he said.

But Mr. Ri said that Kim Jong Un understood that this relationship was temporary and that Russia would likely cut ties after the war. For this reason, Mr. Kim did not abandon the United States, Mr. Ri said.

“North Korea understands that the only way to survive, the only way to eliminate the threat of invasion and develop its economy is to normalize relations with the United States.”

While Russia may have temporarily relieved North Korea of ​​its economic pain, Ri said the complete closure of North Korea’s borders during the pandemic had “severely devastated the country’s economy and people’s lives.”

When the border reopens in 2023 and diplomats prepare to return, Mr Ri said families back home have asked them to “bring anything and everything you have, even used toothbrushes, because there is nothing left in North Korea”.

The North Korean leader demands absolute loyalty from his people and even the slightest dissent can result in a prison sentence. But Mr Ri said years of hardship had eroded the people’s loyalty, as no one expected anything in return from their “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un.

“There is no real loyalty to the regime or to Kim Jong Un anymore, it is forced loyalty, where one has to be loyal or face death,” he said.

The recent change is largely due to the influx of South Korean movies, TV dramas and music, which are smuggled into the North and are illegal to watch and listen to.

“People don’t watch South Korean content because they have faith in capitalism, they simply want to kill time in their monotonous and dreary lives,” Mr. Ri said, but then they start asking, “why are people in the South living the life of a developed country while we are poor?”

But Mr Ri said that while South Korea’s content was changing North Korea, it would not lead to its collapse because of the existing systems of control. “Kim Jong Un is very aware that loyalty is weakening, that people are evolving, and that is why he is intensifying his regime of terror,” he said.

The government has enacted laws to severely punish those who consume and distribute Korean content. The BBC spoke to a defector Last year, the person said he witnessed a person being executed after sharing Korean music and TV shows.

Mr. Ri said North Korea’s decision late last year to abandon its decades-long policy of unification with the South was a further attempt to isolate its people from the South.

He described it as Kim Jong Un’s “most evil act” because all North Koreans dream of unification. He said that while previous North Korean leaders had “stolen their people’s freedom, money and human rights, Kim Jong Un has taken away what they have left: hope.”

Outside North Korea, Kim Jong Un’s health has been the subject of much attention, with some believing his early death could trigger the collapse of the regime. Earlier this week, South Korea’s spy agency estimated that Kim weighed 140kg, putting him at risk of cardiovascular disease.

But Mr Ri believes the system of surveillance and control is now so entrenched that Kim’s death would pose a threat to the dictatorship. “Another evil leader would just replace him,” he said.

It has been widely speculated that Mr. Kim is grooming his little daughter.It was widely believed that Ju Ae would be his successor, but Mr Ri has rejected the idea.

He said Ju Ae lacked the legitimacy and support to become North Korea’s leader, especially since the sacred Paektu bloodline that the Kim family uses to justify their rule is said to be inherited only by men in the family.

Mr Ri said people were initially fascinated by Ju Ae but not anymore. They wondered why she attended missile tests instead of going to school, and wore luxury brand clothes instead of school uniforms like other children.

Instead of waiting for Mr Kim to fall ill or die, the international community must unite, including North Korea’s allies China and Russia, to “persist in persuading them to change,” Mr Ri said.

“This is the only thing that can end the North Korean dictatorship,” he added.

Mr Ri hopes his defection will inspire his peers, not to defect, but to push for small changes from within. He has no grand ambitions, that North Koreans will be able to vote or travel, simply that they will be able to choose what jobs to do, have enough food to eat and be able to share their opinions freely with friends.

However, for now, his priority is to help his family settle into their new life in Korea and help his children integrate into society.

At the end of the interview, he offered a scenario. “Imagine I propose to you a business project and tell you that if it succeeds, we will win big, but if it fails, it means death.

“You wouldn’t agree, would you? Well, that was the choice I forced on my family, and they silently agreed and followed me,” he said.

“This is a debt I will have to pay for the rest of my life.”