North Korea’s diplomats are often seen delivering rigid statements from behind podiums, but a new insider account suggests the real work of Pyongyang’s foreign service happens far from public view.

Drafting reports for Kim Jong Un. Navigating turf battles between rival state and party organs. Moving hard currency through overseas embassies under mounting pressure. 

That is how Han Jin Myung, a former third secretary at North Korea’s embassy in Vietnam who defected in 2014, describes the inner workings of Pyongyang’s foreign policy apparatus, based on a series of conversations with Nicholas Levi, a senior researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean