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Gov’t approves an individual request to visit North Korea

Gov’t approves an individual request to visit North Korea

Posted November. 21, 2017 07:31,   

Updated November. 21, 2017 08:26

한국어

The South Korean government announced on Monday that it approved an individual request from Choi In-guk (71) to visit North Korea to attend the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death. His mother, Ryu Mi-young, was the director of the central committee of Chondoist Chungwoo Party of North Korea. This is the first that the government has allowed an individual visit to North Korea since the Moon Jae-in administration took office.

According to the Ministry of Unification, Choi will stay in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, from Wednesday to Saturday to attend his mother’s anniversary ceremony and pay respects to her graveyard. When Ryu died on Nov. 23 last year, the former Park Geun-hye administration also issued him a permission to visit the North.

Choi Deok-shin, Choi’s father and Ryu’s husband, was the former leader of the North Korean Chondoism, who once served as foreign minister of South Korea and an ambassador to West Germany. Ryu Mi-young went to the United States as an exile with her husband in 1976, before defecting to the North in 1986 where she served as an adviser to the central leaders committee of Korean Chondoist Church, the director of Chondoist Chungwoo Party, chairwoman of Dangoon National Unification Consultation Committee and a standing member of the Supreme People’s Assembly.



Na-Ri Shin journari@donga.com