South Korean officials and experts appeared cool on a reported move by North Korean defectors to establish a government-in-exile in the United States, saying the envisioned entity would not be legally recognized by the South.

“Some 10 chiefs of defectors’ organizations have given their consent to establishing a government in exile in Washington DC in the first half of next year,” local daily DongA Ilbo reported Friday, quoting a leader of a major defectors’ group here.

A former ranking official of the Workers’ Party, who defected to Seoul via a third state last year and moved to Washington recently, is likely to take the leadership post, the report said. 

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, mostly occupied with the possibility of another imminent missile launch by the North, made no official statement on the proposed government in exile.

But a ministry official said South Korea, in accordance with the Constitution, wouldn’t recognize the legal status of the incoming exile government.

“Acknowledging the NK exile government would mean that the South Korean government takes North Korea as a foreign state, which would then contradict our Constitution,” an official of the ministry told reporters.

Article 3 of the Constitution states that the Republic of Korea’s territory comprises the “Korean Peninsula” and its annexed islands, thereby including North Korea in its domain and denying the legitimacy of the North Korean regime.

Han Myung-sub, North Korean issue expert in the Korean Bar Association, also predicted that the US and other countries would not approve of the legitimacy of the exile government “as long as North Korea remains a member of the United Nations.”

He nevertheless suggested that the international society may choose to acknowledge an entity founded by defectors, in an unspoken support of the democratization movement for the reclusive communist regime.

According to the report, the exile government will adopt liberal democracy as its political doctrine, while embracing Chinese economic reform as its economic focus, the latter intended to induce a favorable response from the Chinese government.

The idea of creating a political entity to stand up to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has apparently gained momentum in the wake of the recent chain of defections by government officials, including a deputy ambassador in London in August.

“The initial plan was to announce the establishment (of the exile government) by the end of this year, but the timeline was delayed for financial and procedural reasons,” the defector said.

The number of North Korean defectors here, having reached 29,288 as of April this year, is expected to pass the 30,000 mark within the month, according to ministry data.

Also, the US Department of State said earlier this week that 14 North Korean defectors entered the US as refugees over the past year, raising the total number to 200.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)