SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is to send a personal envoy to Russia, state media said on Friday, the latest in a series of diplomatic moves by the isolated country as it fends off accusations of crimes against humanity.
North Korean diplomats have been on a vigorous campaign in recent months to counter a UN resolution urging the country’s referral to the International Criminal Court, a move which it has dismissed as part of a US-led plot to destroy its political system.
The short one-paragraph dispatch said Choe Ryong Hae, a high-ranking member of the ruling Workers’ Party widely seen as a close confidant of Kim, would visit Russia “soon”, without elaborating further.
A statement on the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website said Choe would visit Moscow on Monday, followed by a visit to the far eastern cities of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok before ending his trip on November 24.
A UN inquiry concluded in a February 17 report that North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Kim himself should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings.
North Korea is already under UN sanctions for repeated nuclear tests and missile launches. (PTI)
