Former North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was reportedly executed last year, the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported today, attributing the information to various anonymous sources.

Ri Yong-ho, who had not been seen in public for several years, would have been executed between the summer and autumn of last year, along with four or five officials from the country, according to several sources close to North Korean internal politics. said newspaper.

These executions could be related to the North Korean embassy in the UK, although the source did not specify the exact reasons, except that all the officers were engaged in diplomacy.

Ri, who was appointed as North Korea’s foreign minister in 2016, played a major role in negotiations with the United States for the 2018 and 2019 summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then-US President Donald Trump.

In 2020, the North Korean regime replaced Ri with Ri Son-gwon, who headed the body in charge of relations with the South in the North during the most recent phase of rapprochement.

The news of the possible execution comes after a year in which North Korea has carried out a record number of tests, around fifty, of weapons of mass destruction and in which the tension on the Korean peninsula has reached new heights. highs.

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