ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704210144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-19 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The high-ranking officer could provide new data for a world curious about secretive North Korea.
The highest-ranking official ever to defect from North Korea arrived in South Korea today, bringing with him a trove of eagerly sought information about the secretive communist nation.
Hwang Jang Yop and an aide flew in from the Philippines, where they were taken after defecting during a stopover in Beijing. Their 67-day detour was intended to spare China diplomatic embarrassment over the incident.
A chartered Air Philippines Boeing 737 jet, carrying Hwang and an aide, arrived this afternoon at the airport in Songnam, just outside of Seoul, after flying from the Philippines, South Korean officials said.
Philippine officials who accompanied Hwang handed over the defectors to South Korean authorities at the airport. The two men were greeted by hometown friends living in South Korea and other North Korean defectors, and they raised their hands and waved back.
In Manila, President Fidel Ramos told reporters at Villamor Air Base that Hwang and his associate, Kim Duk Hong, left the Philippines ``without any untoward incident.''
``Upon consultations with the Republic of Korea, we have decided that the opportune time for the final journey of Mr. Hwang and his companion to South Korea, the country of his choice, has come,'' Ramos said.
South Korean officials said Hwang probably would make a public statement before intelligence agents take him and his aide, Kim Duk Hong, 59, head of a North Korean trade firm, away for medical checks and extensive debriefing.
Hwang, 74, a chief architect of North Korea's isolationist policy of ``juche,'' or self-reliance, once tutored North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
As a former official of North Korea's ruling body, the Central Committee of the Workers Party, he could provide much new data for a world curious about secretive North Korea.
Seoul officials said Hwang would probably speak at a news conference in several weeks.
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