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Highest-ranking N. Korean defector plans to visit U.S.
SEOUL, March 30 (Yonhap) -- The highest-ranking North Korean official ever to defect to South Korea plans to visit the United States soon in his first trip to the country since Seoul decided in 2008 to allow him to travel abroad freely, a government source said Tuesday.Hwang Jang-yop, a vocal critic of his former communist nation, served as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly and secretary of the ruling Workers' Party before defecting to South Korea in 1997. He has since been allowed only once to travel to the U.S. because the previous liberal governments in Seoul feared Hwang's criticism of North Korea could complicate their relations with Pyongyang. But the conservative government of Lee Myung-bak that came to power in early 2008 with a tougher stance on North Korea lifted the restrictions, months after a Supreme Court ruling against them. "I believe (Hwang's) visit to the U.S. is imminent," the source said Tuesday without saying exactly when the trip will take place or what the 88-year-old will do in the U.S. In his previous trip to the U.S. in 2003, Hwang testified before a Congressional hearing, prompting Pyongyang to denounce him as "human scum." The planned trip comes after Japanese media reported Hwang may visit Tokyo next month to speak at a parliamentary hearing on the abduction of Japanese nationals and others by the North decades ago. Hwang rarely discloses his whereabouts for fear over his security and lives under police protection. A South Korean man was sentenced to a jail term in 2006 for making a death threat against him. Posted by: Steve White 2010-03-31 |
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