North Korea's highest-profile defector in years has criticized the ruling Kim dynasty for the country's diplomatic decline, claiming Kim Jong Un has only accelerated the downfall of the regime.
Ri Il-gyu, a high-ranking former political attaché at the country's embassy in Cuba, gave a scathing tell-all interview last month to South Korean news outlet The Chosun Daily about the "bleak future" of the North Korean system.
"North Korea's diplomacy is all about serving the Kim family system and preserving its existence," Ri said at a forum hosted by the South Korean parliament on Monday, according to local media.
This focus on regime preservation has isolated the country, a trend that has only intensified since Kim took control in 2011, Ri said.
Under Kim, Pyongyang has pursued a foreign policy prioritizing ties with a handful of countries such as China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, and Syria, "strengthening solidarity with countries that oppose U.S. hegemony," the diplomat added.
Kim has also favored a "high-pressure" brand of diplomatic brinkmanship, Ri said, noting that four of the six nuclear weapons tests North Korea is known to have carried out occurred under the 40-year-old leader's watch.
"Kim Jong Un is obsessed with nuclear and missile programs and is still using the 'cliffhanger tactics' he learned from Kim Jong Il, completely ignoring any negotiations or international cooperation," Ri said.
"Even countries with strong pro-North Korean tendencies don't want to be lumped in with North Korea," he added. "Even Cuba does not express any support for North Korea's nuclear tests."
Washington, D.C.-based Carnegie Endowment for Peace said earlier this year that "regime collapse is not necessarily around the corner" for Kim, pointing out many North Korea analysts predicted this outcome when his father and predecessor Kim Jong Il died 13 years ago.
The think tank called the prospect of a military coup "slim" but said the country is "still hollowing out and the Kim dynasty is in decline."
The North Korean embassy in China did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The former diplomat's remarks come amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the North's recent months-long spate of ballistic missile tests, the suspension of a military pact meant to lower tensions along the Demilitarized Zone between the neighbors, tit-for-tat balloon exchanges, and Seoul's deployment of loudspeakers blasting propaganda across the border.
Ri and his family fled to the South in November. In his July interview, he cited mounting disenchantment with life in the North and a lack of appreciation for his work by the country's diplomatic corps. He said the last straw was being denied permission to travel to Mexico to treat nerve damage related to a spine injury.
North Korean authorities mete out harsh punishment to citizens caught trying to leave the country, with penalties ranging from prison camps to public execution.
Despite the end of open hostilities in 1953, the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty and thus technically remain at war.
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