ROME, January 3 -- North Korea’s top diplomat in Italy has reportedly sought asylum in what would be another high-profile defection bid by one of Pyongyang’s envoys. Jo Song-gil, the acting North Korean ambassador to Rome, applied for asylum to an unidentified Western country with his family, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo daily said on Thursday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Seoul. "He sought asylum early last month," the JoongAng quoted one source as saying. Italian authorities were "agonising" over what to do, the official was quoted as saying, but added they were "protecting him in a safe place". If confirmed, this would be the first defection by a North Korean diplomat since 2016, when deputy ambassador to London Thae Yong-ho fled to the South with his wife and two sons. According to Joongang Ilbo, Jo has been serving as acting ambassador after Italy expelled then ambassador Mun Jong-nam following the North’s sixth nuclear test in September 2017. The Jo family had been living in Rome since 2015 with no direct relatives still living in Pyongyang – a rare privilege granted only to North Korean power elites because it leaves nobody behind to prevent them from defecting, the daily said. Jo is “known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North’s regime”, the Joongang cited an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. The Kim dynasty has ruled the impoverished but nuclear-armed state for three generations with little tolerance for dissent, and the regime stands accused of widespread human rights abuses. North Korean diplomats are usually called back home when they have spent about three years overseas. Many are aggrieved when they are told to return home from developed countries where they can raise their children in a presumably favorable environment, North Korean defectors have said.
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