South Korean Daily Says That Kim Jong-un Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators – The New York Times

Both Kim Hyok-chol and Kim Yong-chol were absent from the North Korean delegation when Kim Jong-un met last month with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. In their places were senior officials from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, like Minister Lee Yong-ho and First Vice Minister Choe Son-hui, who have emerged as the new faces of North Korean diplomacy.

Mr. Kim has said he will give Washington until the end of the year to make a new denuclearization proposal he can accept, or he may abandon his diplomacy with Mr. Trump. As if to press the point, North Korea has recently resumed tests of short-range missiles.

Even Kim Jong-il’s sister and adviser, Kim Yo-jong, did not accompany Mr. Kim to the meeting with Mr. Putin, although she has been a fixture in high-profile summit meetings with American, Chinese and South Korean leaders.

Chosun Ilbo said the sister may have been reprimanded by Mr. Kim or may be sick with pneumonia.

Jung Chang-hyun, head of the Korean Peace and Economy Institute, a research group affiliated with South Korea’s Moneytoday news media group, said he had heard that four North Korean Foreign Ministry officials were executed by firing squad around March, not because of the breakdown of the Hanoi summit meeting, but rather for a separate corruption scandal.

It remained unclear whether the four officials included Kim Hyok-chol, said Mr. Jung, an expert on the North Korean regime and author of books on the North. But Mr. Jung said that officials under Kim Jong-un’s sister were also involved in the corruption scandal and that as a consequence, Ms. Kim was put on probation by her brother. Mr. Jung said he acquired the information from third-country sources who meet or communicate with North Korean officials through China.

Since taking power seven years ago, Kim Jong-un has engineered a series of bloody political purges to remove or execute many of the top officials who had served under his late father, Kim Jong-il, and consolidate his own leadership. The most prominent victim has been Jang Song-thaek, Mr. Kim’s uncle, who was executed in the Mirim airfield in 2013 on charges of corruption and plotting a military coup against Mr. Kim.