North Korea Appoints New Foreign Minister
MEP: North Korea has appointed Ri Yong Ho, a career diplomat with broad experience in negotiating with rivals South Korea and the United States as its new foreign minister, according to statement from the DPRK embassy in London to the government of the United Kingdom, dated May 16.
Some South Korean analysts say Ri’s appointment could be part of a bid to revive long-stalled diplomacy and improve ties with the outside world after Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch in February led to international criticism and tough sanctions.
Ri has at least 38 years of experience in foreign affairs and diplomacy. He majored in English as the Pyongyang University of Foreign Language. Afterward, he held numerous posts within the DPRK Foreign Ministry, first working as policy staff from 1978-79, then as a secretary at the embassies in Zimbabwe from 1979-85 and then Sweden from 1985-88, and then returning to North Korea to work in the Ministry’s Bureau of International Organizations from 1988-95. From 1995 to 2000 he held the title of councilor and then from 2000 was considered an ambassador-at-large.
From 2007, Ri held the title of “councilor and negotiator” and was promoted to vice minister of Foreign Affairs in 2010. That same year he was made an alternate member of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee (WPK CC). In 2011, Ri was made chief representative to the Six-Party Talks, succeeding Kim Kye Gwan. He was recently made a full member of the WPK CC and an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the WPK CC at the conclusion of the Seventh Congress of the WPK on May 10.
