Seoul Says: A Senior North Korean Intelligence Officer Defected To South

Seoul Says: A Senior North Korean Intelligence Officer Defected To South

A high-ranking officer from North Korea's military intelligence agency fled to South Korea last year, the Seoul government confirmed Monday. North Korea Ready For War

Colonel, who did not disclose the name by the South Korean government, worked for the Office of the poll for the Korean Army North. It is believed that the agency behind two deadly accused Pyongyang, which killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. Arms Videos

General Reconnaissance Office also deals in electronic warfare, and suspected widely being behind the attack hack 2014 on Sony Pictures Entertainment.War 2016

South Korea's More News reported that the colonel is viewed as an elite member of North Korean society by other defectors from the Communist dictatorship. 

"It is believed that he has announced details about the office operations against South Korea to the authorities here," the agency quoted the source as saying.

The announcement of the colonel's defection came three days after South Korea revealed 13 North Koreans working at the same restaurant in a foreign country had defected to the South, the largest group defection since North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011. South Korean media reported the restaurant is located in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.

The highest level of North Korea, who took refuge in the South Korean Hwang Jang- YOP, a senior official of the ruling Workers' Party who has studied the one-time dictator Kim's late father, Kim Jong Il. He praised the defection of Hwang in 1997 by many South Koreans as a wealth of intelligence and clear signal that the political system in North Korea was inferior to the south. Hwang died in 2010.

According to the Yonhap news agency that a number of North Korean officials at a low level based in foreign countries have sought asylum to avoid falling into one of the cleansing Kim Jong-un's operations. And it confirmed the South Korean Unification Ministry Monday that North Korean diplomat in Africa also dissented separately to South Korea last year. He did not elaborate.

The spy agency in South Korea last year that Kim has had more than 70 officials from North Korea executed in an attempt to consolidate his grip on power. However, these reports are almost impossible to confirm the result of strict controls on information from North Korea.

More than 29,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have testified they wanted to avoid the North's harsh political system and poverty.

Defections are a source of bitter dispute between the rival Koreas, which are still divided on the most traded in the world's heavily fortified border since the end of the Korean War. Pyongyang often accuses Seoul of temptation North Korean citizens defect, a charge denied by Seoul.