North Korean UNESCO official to skip Jeju Forum

Participants attend a session during the 20th Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity at the International Convention Center Jeju in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, May 28, 2025. Newsis

A North Korean UNESCO official who had been expected to join this year’s Jeju Forum remotely will not take part in the event after all, organizers said Tuesday.

Chang Gwnag-chol, chief of the Education Policy Section at UNESCO, had been scheduled to participate via video in a Friday session titled “UNESCO and the Future of Education: Challenges and Prospects.”

Had he joined, he would likely have become the first North Korean figure to take part in the annual international forum.

According to the Jeju Peace Institute, which organizes the event, UNESCO recently informed the forum that Chang would no longer participate. A Vietnamese education expert is expected to replace him on the panel.

Interest in Chang’s participation had grown in recent weeks because the event is being jointly hosted by the Foreign Ministry and Jeju Province at a time when inter-Korean relations remain largely frozen.

Earlier this month, the Unification Ministry said it had accepted a contact report — required under South Korean law before nationals may contact North Korean citizens —submitted by the organizers regarding Chang’s planned virtual appearance, noting that Chang’s participation should be viewed as that of a UNESCO official rather than a representative of North Korea.

Chang, a graduate of Kim Hyong Jik University of Education, previously worked for North Korea’s education authorities before joining UNESCO. He has taken part in a number of international education events, including the Seoul International Education Forum, also virtually, in 2020.

Some observers speculated that Chang may have felt burdened by media attention surrounding his planned appearance, though no official explanation for his withdrawal has been disclosed.

Meanwhile, some former North Korean diplomats and defectors have claimed that officials dispatched by Pyongyang to international organizations occasionally serve information-gathering functions, though no such claim has been substantiated in Chang's case.

The 21st Jeju Forum, themed “Reinventing Cooperation in an Era of Fragmentation,” will be held from Wednesday to Friday at the Haevichi Hotel & Resort in Jeju.