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Former diplomat Lee Il-gyu, who worked in Cuba, fled with his family to South Korea last November. He has met Kim Jong Un face to face and is convinced that the North Korean dictator is willing to kill all 25 million people in his country to ensure his survival. Also, Kim really wants to see Donald Trump as president. The BBC writes about it.
According to Lee, Donald Trump's return to the White House will be a "once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity" for North Korea.
Lee Il-gyu met Kim Jong-un personally due to his high status, and in his first interview, he described the North Korean dictator as a pleasant, smiling person.
"He often smiles, often praises people. He seems like an ordinary person. He could have been a wonderful man and father, but turning him into a god made him a terrible being," Lee said.
He has no doubt that Kim will do anything to ensure his survival, even if it means killing all 25 million North Koreans.
Relations between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump
He said North Korea still sees Trump as someone to negotiate with over its nuclear weapons program, despite the collapse of talks between him and Kim Jong-un in 2019.
Trump has previously hailed relations with Kim as a key achievement of his presidency. He said that they literally "fell in love with each other" by exchanging letters. Just last month, Trump told a rally that Kim would like to see him back in the White House: "I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth."
North Korea hopes to use this close personal relationship to its advantage, Lee says.
He also argues that North Korea, as a nuclear power, will never get rid of its weapons and will likely seek an agreement to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions.
But he is sure that Pyongyang will not negotiate in good faith. Agreeing to freeze its nuclear program "would be a ploy, 100% deception," he says, adding that it would be a "dangerous approach that would only strengthen North Korea."
Relations between the DPRK and Russia
Referring to North Korea's recent closer ties with Russia, Lee says the war in Ukraine was good luck for Pyongyang. The US and South Korea believe that North Korea sold Moscow millions of munitions to support its invasion in exchange for food, fuel and possibly even military equipment.
According to Lee, the main advantage of this agreement for Pyongyang was the opportunity to continue developing nuclear weapons.
But Lee believes that Kim Jong Un understands that these relations are temporary and after the war, Russia will most likely break off relations.
"North Korea understands that the only way to its survival, the only way to eliminate the threat of invasion and develop its economy, is to normalize relations with the United States. Although the Russian Federation may have given North Korea a temporary respite from its economic suffering, the complete closure of the DPRK's borders during the pandemic has seriously destroyed the country's economy and people's lives," says Lee. According to him, when the borders reopened in 2023, diplomats were asked to bring literally everything, even "used toothbrushes", to their homeland.
Kim Jong-un's politics and whether Kim Ju-ae will be his successor
The North Korean leader demands total loyalty from his citizens, and the slightest act of dissent can lead to prison terms. But Lee says years of wandering have eroded people's loyalty.
"There is no longer true loyalty to the regime or to Kim Jong Un, there is a forced loyalty where you have to be loyal or die," he says.
Recent changes are largely due to an influx of South Korean films, dramas and music that have been smuggled into the North and are banned from viewing and listening.
"People don't watch South Korean content because they have capitalist beliefs, they're just trying to kill time in their monotonous and dreary lives," Lee says, but then they start asking, "Why do people in the South live the life of a first-world country, while we are we in trouble?"
But Lee is sure that there will be no revolution in North Korea. "Kim Jong-un understands very well that loyalty weakens, that people evolve, and that is why he is intensifying his reign of terror," he says.
According to him, the decision adopted by North Korea at the end of last year to abandon the long-term policy of reunification with the South was another attempt to isolate people. And this was the worst act of Kim Jong-un. He says that while past North Korean leaders "stole people's freedom, money and human rights, Kim Jong-un stole what they had left: hope."
Outside of North Korea, much attention is paid to the health of Kim Jong-un, some believe that his untimely death could trigger the collapse of the regime. But Lee believes that if even Kim Jong-un dies, another "evil leader" will simply take his place, but not his daughter Kim Ju-ye.
Joo-ae lacks the legitimacy and popularity to become North Korea's leader, he said, especially since the sacred Baektu lineage that the Kims use to justify their rule is believed to be passed down only through the male line of the family.
At first, people were fascinated by Zhu Ye, Li says, but not anymore. They wonder why she went to missile tests instead of school and wore fancy designer clothes instead of a school uniform like the other kids.
How diplomat Lee Il-gyu escaped from the DPRK
He has been living in South Korea for eight months, but so far he is accompanied everywhere by a police bodyguard and two intelligence agents. "I lived the life of the richest 1% in North Korea, but it's still worse than the life of a middle-class family in the South," he says.
As a diplomat in Cuba, Lee earned only $500 a month and therefore illegally sold Cuban cigars in China to earn enough money to feed his family.
When he first told his wife about his desire to run away, she was so upset that she ended up in the hospital with heart problems. After that, he kept his plans a secret, sharing them with her and the baby only six hours before their plane left.
He describes it as "a game not for life, but for death." Ordinary North Koreans caught defecting are usually tortured for several months before being released, he says. "But for elites like us, there are only two outcomes — life in a political prison camp or execution. Fear and terror were unbearable. I could accept my death, but I could not bear the thought of my family being dragged to the Gulag," he says, and although he has never been a believer, while he was waiting at the airport for his flight, he began to pray .
For now, his priority is helping his family settle into a new life in South Korea and assimilating his child into society.
“This is a choice I imposed on my family, and they silently agreed and followed me. Now this is a debt that I will have to pay for the rest of my life," he says.
