Kim Kye-Gwan Purged?

Writing in the Asia Times, Don Kirk passes along reports that Kim Kye Gwan, the man who tricked Chris Hill into Agreed Framework II and a host of unilateral concessions that followed it, has been purged.

He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he’s dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education.

Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in North Korea. In the quest for people to blame for North Korea’s flirtation with reconciliation with the United States and South Korea, they say, Kim would rank high on the list of those now viewed as “enemies”.  [Asia Times, Don Kirk]

Oddly enough, Kim’s obvious talents for cajoling and lying worked better on American diplomats than on North Korean generals.  Maybe the North Koreans concluded that Agreed Framework II was not such an achievement of Kim’s brilliance as of Hill’s incompetence.  Viewed in that light, Kim Kye-Gwan isn’t that hard a man to replace.