North Korea has reportedly executed several Foreign Ministry officials, including its special envoy to the U.S., over the collapse of dictator Kim Jong-un’s Vietnam summit with President Trump.

“Kim Hyok-chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” an unnamed North Korean officials told a South Korean newspaper for Friday’s editions.

Another official, Kim Yong-chol, was punished with forced labor and “ideological education,” according to the Chosun Ilbo paper.

Other purge victims, according to a Reuters news agency translation of the Korean newspaper’s report are Kim Song-hye, who helped oversee working-level negotiations, and Shin Hye-yong, Kim Jong-un’s interpreter, who was blamed for a translation error.

Those two individuals have been sent to political prison camps, Chosun Ilbo reported. </s> North Korea has reportedly executed its special envoy to the U.S. and four other Foreign Ministry officials after the February U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi didn’t work out.According to Reuters, South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports that Kim Hyok Chol—who had served as U.S. …Read more via The Daily Beast Latest Articles – http://bit.ly/2I7R87J </s> North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

[SEOUL] North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok Chol, who laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for "betraying the supreme leader" after he was turned by the US.

"Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim Airport along with four senior foreign ministry officials following an investigation," the newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying.

The other officials were not named.

Kim Hyok Chol was the North's counterpart of US special representative Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the Hanoi summit in February.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, declined to comment on the report.

The paper also said Kim Jong Un's interpreter Shin Hye Yong was sent to a prison camp for a mistake at the summit.

She failed to translate Kim's new proposal when Trump declared "no deal" and walked away from the table, Chosun reported, citing another unnamed diplomatic source.

Kim Jong Un and Mr Trump left the Vietnamese capital without a deal after they failed to reach agreement on rolling back Pyongyang's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The North has since sought to raise the pressure and carried out two short-range missile tests in May.

Senior party official Kim Yong Chol, the North's counterpart to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in nuclear talks, was also sent to a labour camp, the paper said.

In April, South Korea's parliamentary intelligence committee said Kim Yong Chol had been censured over his handling of the Hanoi summit, despite the fact he had recently been named a member of the State Affairs Commission, a supreme governing body chaired by Kim Jong Un.

News of the reported purge came as North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling party, on Thursday warned that officials who committed anti-party or anti-revolutionary acts would face the "stern judgement of the revolution".

Previous South Korean reports of North Korean purges and executions have later proved inaccurate.

The Chosun Ilbo itself incorrectly reported in 2013 that Hyon Song Wol, head of the North's Samjiyon Orchestra, was executed by firing squad for distributing and watching pornographic content.

And the Unification Ministry also mistakenly announced in February 2016 that Ri Yong Gil, chief of the general staff of the North Korean People's Army, had been executed. </s> SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea executed its nuclear envoy to the United States as part of a purge of officials who steered negotiations for a failed summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper said on Friday.

Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim Airport in Pyongyang, along with four foreign ministry officials after they were charged with spying for the United States, the Chosun Ilbo reported, citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the situation.

“He was accused of spying for the United States for poorly reporting on the negotiations without properly grasping U.S. intentions,” the source was quoted as saying.

The February summit in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, the second between Kim and Trump, failed to reach a deal because of conflicts over U.S. calls for complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and North Korean demands for sanctions relief.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the report. Previously, some North Korean officials who were reported to have been executed or purged reappeared later with new titles.

A spokeswoman at South Korea’s Unification Ministry declined to comment. An official at the presidential Blue House in Seoul said it was inappropriate to comment on an unverified report.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders declined to comment on the reports, saying, “I am not going to comment on intelligence one way or another.”

“I can tell you we are monitoring the situation and continuing to stay focused on our ultimate goal, which is denuclearization,” she told reporters in Washington.

The United States is attempting to check on the reports of the envoy’s execution, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during his visit to Berlin on Friday

When asked about reports of a “shakeup” of Kim Jong Un’s negotiating team in a May 5 interview with ABC News, Pompeo said it did appear that his future counterpart would be somebody else “but we don’t know that for sure.”

A diplomatic source told Reuters there were signs Kim Hyok Chol and other officials were punished, but there was no evidence they were executed and they may have been sent to a labor camp for re-education.

The newspaper reported that other officials had been punished, but not executed.

Kim Yong Chol, Kim Jong Un’s right-hand man and the counterpart to Pompeo before the Hanoi summit, had been sent to a labor and reeducation camp in Jagang Province near the Chinese border, the Chosun Ilbo reported.

Officials who worked with Kim Yong Chol have been out of the public eye since the summit, while seasoned diplomats who appeared to have been sidelined, including vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui, were seen returning to the spotlight.

A South Korean lawmaker told Reuters in April that Kim Yong Chol had been removed from a key party post.

RISE AND FALL

Kim Hyok Chol was seen as a rising star when he was appointed to spearhead working-level talks with U.S. nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun weeks before the Hanoi summit.

However, little was known about his expertise or his role in the talks. The four executed alongside him included diplomats working on relations with Vietnam, the Chosun report said.

FILE PHOTO - Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea's special representative for U.S. affairs, leaves the Government Guesthouse in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 23, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

“This is a man who might provide some tactical advice to the leader but is otherwise a message bearer with little negotiating or policymaking latitude,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the Washington-based Stimson Centre.

“Instead, they put in someone like Kim Hyok Chol to insulate Choe Son Hui and more substantive diplomatic personnel, to a certain degree he is expendable and his superiors are not.”

The penalized members of Kim Yong Chol’s team included Kim Song Hye, who led the preparations, and Sin Hye Yong, a newly elevated interpreter for the Hanoi summit. They were said to have been detained in a camp for political prisoners, the newspaper said.

The diplomatic source said Kim Song Hye’s punishment seemed inevitable because she was a “prime author” of the North’s plan to secure sanctions relief in return for dismantling the Yongbyon main nuclear complex.

The idea was rejected by the United States which demanded a comprehensive roadmap for denuclearization.

Kim Song Hye had also worked closely with Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s younger sister and a senior party official whom Kim Song Hye accompanied to South Korea for the Winter Olympics last year.

Kim Yo Jong was also lying low, the paper reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government official.

Madden, however, said Kim Yo Jong’s status was unchanged as Kim Jong Un’s top aide, citing her attendance at key party meetings in April and appearance in state media reports.

Sin Hye Yong was charged with making critical interpretation mistakes that included missing an unspecified “last-minute offer” the North Korean leader supposedly made as Trump was about to walk out, Chosun reported.

‘TWO-FACED’

Slideshow (3 Images)

North Korea’s official party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun warned on Thursday that “two-faced” officials would face the “stern judgment of the revolution”.

“It is an anti-Party, anti-revolutionary act to pretend to be revering the leader in front of him when you actually dream of something else,” it said in a commentary.

Hong Min, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said it was possible Kim Hyok Chol and other officials faced some penalty but further verification was needed.

“Executing or completely removing people like him would send a very bad signal to the United States because he was the public face of the talks and it could indicate they are negating all they have discussed,” Hong said. </s> The hermit state has reportedly executed four foreign ministry officials after Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump’s latest summit, held in February in Vietnam, failed. The officials are thought to have been executed by firing squad in Pyongyang earlier in April. But according to Japanese agency AsiaPress, rumours have circulated that the officials were accused by North Korea of selling information to the US ahead of the summit.

A trade official in the secretive country believe this caused the Hanoi summit to fail and ordered the death of the officials. The deceased officials are said to have also included a diplomat from the North Korean embassy in Hanoi. The country’s media is state controlled, while communication with the rest of the world is restricted. Punishment for anyone sharing information can be severe.

The news agency said one of its reporters had spoken to a trade official as they travelled to Pyongyang from China earlier this month. A source who lives close to the border told the agency that four officials were executed in Pyongyang at the beginning of April for leaking information. It was also claimed the execution was watched by members of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and Korean People's Army.

Yonhap news agency reported North Korea had replaced Kim Jong Un's right-hand man who steered nuclear talks with the United States. Kim Yong Chol, Mike Pompeo’s Korean counterpart, was removed as head of the United Front Department, the North Korean Workers' Party apparatus that traditionally oversees ties with South Korea and increasingly with the United States, reported. A South Korean lawmaker said The NK Worker’s Party blamed the official for the failed summit between the two countries.

A spokeswoman for the US State Department said it was aware of the reports but withheld further comment except to add: "As we have said before, we remain ready to engage in constructive negotiations." Meanwhile the North Korean leader arrived at Russia’s Vladivostok station by armoured train on Wednesday at the start of a state visit to gain the support of President Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the talks on Thursday, Kim told Russian state TV through an interpreter: "I hope that we can discuss concrete questions about peace negotiations on the Korean peninsula, and our bilateral relations." </s> North Korea carried out a purge of its top officials, holding them responsible for the collapse of the second United States-North Korea summit, reported South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, according to Reuters.

The summit, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, was cut short and failed to produce a joint agreement.

U.S. President Donald Trump had rejected Kim’s offer to shut down Yongbyon — a key nuclear facility — in return for sanctions to be “lifted in their entirety”.

However, Trump also blamed the collapse of the talks on the fact that his former lawyer Michael Cohen was questioned during an open hearing on the same day as the summit.

Despite it being hyped by North Korean state media, with possible sanctions relief to help alleviate North Korea’s economic woes, Kim ultimately returned home with nothing to show for the trip.

Since the breakdown of the summit, nuclear talks have also stalled.

The officials who were reportedly executed include North Korea’s special envoy to the U.S., Kim Hyok-chol.

Kim, who acted as a negotiations counterpart to the U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, was charged with spying for the U.S.

Chosun Ilbo, quoting an unnamed North Korean source, said he was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport in March, along with four foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the Hanoi summit in February.

Lee Seong-hyon, a researcher at the South Korea-based think tank Sejong Instite, told the Financial Times that ‘bloodshed’ of this sort is very normal under Kim’s rule.

The purging was also said to be carried out by Kim Jong-un to divert attention from growing discontent in the totalitarian state.

Kim Yong-chol, Kim Jong-un’s right-hand man and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s counterpart in the lead-up to the Hanoi summit, was sentenced to forced labour in Jagang Province, a remote northern province, Chosun Ilbo reported.

He was also subjected to ideological education.

Kim Song-hye, a senior female nuclear negotiator who worked with Kim Hyok-chol, was also reportedly sent to a political prison camp.

And Shin Hye-yong, the translator at the Hanoi summit was also reportedly sent to a prison camp for undermining Kim Jong-un’s authority by making a critical translation mistake.

Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, who assisted him in Hanoi, was also told to lie low, according to an unnamed South Korean official quoted in Chosun Ilbo.

South Korean analysts have speculated in recent weeks that Kim may be planning a reshuffle or a purge of his negotiating team following the Hanoi summit.

Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, published a commentary on Thursday that warned against “traitors” who only “memorise words of loyalty towards the Leader”, but change according to “the trend of time”.

Chosun Ilbo said this is the first time since the 2013 execution of Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, that terms such as “anti-party” and “stern judgment” appeared in Rodong Sinmun. </s> SEOUL: North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States following the collapse of the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday.

The Chosun Ilbo said Kim Hyok Chol, who laid the groundwork for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied Kim on his private train, was executed by firing squad for "betraying the supreme leader" after he was "won over to the US" during pre-summit negotiations.

"Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim Airport along with four senior foreign ministry officials following an investigation," the newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying. The other officials were not named.

Asked about the account, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was trying to verify it. "We’ve seen the reporting to which you’re referring. We’re doing our best to check it out," he told reporters on a visit to Berlin.

"I don’t have anything else to add to that today." Kim Hyok Chol was the North’s counterpart of US special representative Stephen Biegun in the run-up to the Hanoi summit in February. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, declined to comment on the report.

Some previous South Korean reports of North Korean purges and executions have later proved inaccurate. The paper also said Kim Jong Un’s interpreter Shin Hye Yong was sent to a prison camp for a mistake at the summit.

She failed to translate Kim’s new proposal when Trump declared "no deal" and walked away from the table, Chosun reported, citing another unnamed diplomatic source. Kim Jong Un and Trump left the Vietnamese capital without a deal after they failed to reach agreement on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The North has since sought to raise the pressure and carried out two short-range missile tests in May. Senior party official Kim Yong Chol, the North’s counterpart to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in nuclear talks, was also sent to a labour camp, the paper said. </s> North Korea executed its former top nuclear envoy with the U.S. along with four other foreign ministry officials in March after a failed summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump in Vietnam, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.

Kim Hyok Chol, who led working-level negotiations for the February summit in Hanoi, was executed by firing squad after being charged with espionage for allegedly being co-opted by the U.S., the newspaper said, citing an unidentified source. The move was part of an internal purge Kim undertook after the summit broke down without any deal, it said.

Previous reports in South Korea media about senior North Korean officials being executed have proven false. Speculation has swirled for months about the fate of Kim Hyok Chol, who hasn’t received any mentions in state media reports.

Talks between the U.S. and North Korea have stalled since the Vietnam summit, with no plans for them to get underway. Stephen Biegun, the Trump administration’s nuclear envoy to North Korea and Kim Hyok Chol’s counterpart, plans to meet with Japanese and South Korean negotiators this weekend in Singapore.

The February summit in Hanoi abruptly collapsed, with Trump calling off the talks. Analysts said Kim may have overplayed his hand by seeking too much sanctions relief and offering too few nuclear disarmament steps in return.

A career diplomat known for his expertise in nuclear deterrence against the U.S., Kim Hyok Chol’s appointment earlier this year as Biegun’s counterpart surprised North Korea watchers. One South Korean TV outlet drew a circle around him in a video from a White House meeting between Trump and North Korean officials, asking who he was.

Kim Jong Un’s top aide Kim Yong Chol is reportedly undergoing hard labor, according to the South Korean newspaper report. </s> North Korea has executed five officials for their part in the failed second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a South Korean newspaper.

Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea's special envoy to the U.S., was executed by firing squad in March for being "won over by the American imperialists to betray the supreme leader", according to the Chosun Ilbo.

The paper also claimed that four other North Korean Foreign Ministry officials were executed that same month because of the breakdown of the February summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, but did not provide details.

JAMES CARAFANO: TRUMP AND KIM - WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON? LET'S HANDICAP NEXT STEPS WITH NORTH KOREA

Seoul's spy service said it could not confirm the report, while the presidential Blue House said that "it's inappropriate to make hasty judgments or comments."

Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, told reporters in Berlin that he had seen the reports and the U.S. was "doing our best to check it out."

JOY BEHAR LIKENS TRUMP TO A 'MOBSTER' AFTER 'DISGRACEFUL' COMMENTS ABOUT BIDEN AND NORTH KOREA

Trump’s much-anticipated summit with Kim ended abruptly and without the two leaders signing any agreements over nuclear disarmament.

Top Kim aide Kim Yong Chol is reportedly undergoing hard labor for his role in the breakdown.

He had been Kim’s most trusted policy adviser and was removed from one of his posts.

He even was seen in photos with President Trump at the White House over the past year, delivering letters from the North Korean dictator.

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Kim Yong Chol has been North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator and the counterpart of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo since Kim entered nuclear talks with the U.S. early last year.

Since the Hanoi nuclear summit between Trump and Kim ended in failure, North Korea has again tested weapons and boosted its belligerent rhetoric toward American and South Korean officials.

Fox News' Bradford Betz and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
According to South Korean media, North Korea executed five officials back in March, including Kim Hyok-chol, its nuclear envoy to the United States, for their part in the failed second summit in Hanoi. In addition, three other officials involved in the summit have reportedly been sent to a camp for political prisoners.