North Korea likely to send senior official to UN General Assembly

North Korea is expected to send a vice minister to the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month. 

A North Korean vice minister is scheduled to speak during the high-level segment of the 81st UN General Assembly, which begins on Sept. 22, according to an updated speakers list released by the UN Secretariat.

The minister will address the assembly at the UN headquarters on Sept. 28, the final day of the session.

 While North Korea’s foreign ministry has several vice ministers, diplomatic sources believe that Kim Son-gyong, the vice minister overseeing international organizations, is likely to attend as he did last year.

The potential visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled interest in restarting dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Experts and observers are circulating numerous predictions, including the possibility that the North — which has enshrined its status as a nuclear-armed state in its constitution — will use the occasion to reaffirm its stance on denuclearization and consider behind-the-scenes contact between Washington and Pyongyang.

Following the collapse of the summit between the U.S. and North Korean leaders in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019, Pyongyang went six years without sending a senior official to the General Assembly, instead having Kim Song, its ambassador to the UN, deliver its remarks through 2024.

Last year, North Korea sent Son-gyong to the General Assembly for the first time in seven years, and he reaffirmed North Korea’s rejection of denuclearization, saying that would amount to “abandoning [its] sovereignty and [its] right to survival.”

Before, former Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong attended the General Assembly from 2014 to 2015, and former Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho from 2016 to 2018.

BY JEONG YONG-SOO [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]