In recent days North Korea watchers have been exposed to a rather amusing show: Pyongyang engaging in frequent and comically inconsistent attempts to find suitable explanations for the embarrassing defection of a prominent diplomat and his family.

First, Kim Myong-chol, a well-known and tested spokesperson of North Korea’s Ministry of Truth, explained in the Telegraph that Tae Yong-ho had been a victim of a South Korean plot. The incident, Kim said, was a “typical operation of South Korean intelligence services and part of a plot to bring down North Korea.” As such, Tae’s children had been kidnaped to blackmail him