North Korea executed its special envoy to the US, Kim Hyok Chol, and four other foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level talks for the failed summit with the US in February, a South Korean newspaper said on Friday.
Kim Yong Chol, a former counterpart of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the run-up to the Hanoi summit, had also been subjected to forced labour and ideological education, the Chosun Ilbo said.
Chosun, South Korea’s most widely circulated daily, said the massive purge appears to be aimed at quelling growing discontent in North Korea in the wake of the failed Hanoi summit, where US President Donald Trump rejected North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s offer to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear complex in return for sanctions relief.