SEOUL – South Korea’s spy agency said Friday that Pyongyang was plotting “terrorist” attacks targeting Seoul’s officials and citizens overseas, with the foreign ministry raising the alert level for diplomatic missions in five countries.
The spy agency said it appeared linked to a wave of defections by elite North Koreans who were trapped overseas during the pandemic and are now avoiding returning home after Pyongyang eased strict border controls, having become “sceptical” of the regime. South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it had raised its anti-terrorism alert status for five of its diplomatic missions — embassies in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam as well as its consulates in Russian port city Vladivostok and the Chinese city of Shenyang.North Korea has diplomatic ties with more than 150 countries, according to Seoul, but the number of missions it maintains overseas has shrunk since the 1990s due to financial constraints.
“The end of the pandemic has enabled North Korean agents, previously confined within their country, to travel abroad for missions, while South Koreans are also travelling abroad without any restrictions,” Lee Man-jong, president of the Korean Association for Terrorism Studies, told AFP. “While living abroad, these North Koreans were able to send their children to normal schools, avoiding propaganda education and the constant need to be obedient to the regime,” Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.
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