Choe Son-hui

[6] She worked as an interpreter and aide in nuclear talks under First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye-gwan.

[2] Choe's longstanding position is that the nuclear weapons program of North Korea is the only reliable safeguard of the country's sovereignty.

[16] Choe was promoted to the rank of Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in late February 2018,[2] replacing Han Song-ryol and taking his North America portfolio.

[17] In the run-up, she headed North Korea's negotiating team a number of times when they met with their American counterparts.

[21] On 24 May, the state news agency KCNA released a statement by Choe in which she criticized US Vice President Mike Pence,[22] calling him a "political dummy" for comparing North Korea to Libya and its nuclear weapons program:[23] As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice-president.

If he is vice-president of "single superpower" as is in name, it will be proper for him to know even a little bit about the current state of global affairs and to sense to a certain degree the trends in dialogue and the climate of détente.

We could surmise more than enough what a political dummy he is as he is trying to compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya that had simply installed a few items of equipment and fiddled around with them.

[15] At the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit that ended prematurely and without an agreement,[26] Choe was the last person to have talked to the American team of negotiators.

When she was then asked to clarify what the offer meant, she was unable to give any further details, resulting in the American team walking out.

[27] Choe received a series of promotions in April 2019, becoming a member of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and the State Affairs Commission (SAC).

The promotion to SAC in particular has been interpreted as making Choe a very powerful foreign policy official and possibly signaling new impetus to talks between North Korea and the United States.

[27] Ralph Cossa, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies's Pacific Forum, calls her "incredibly bright and apparently well-connected".

[28] In December 2024, during the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Choe was promoted to become a member of the WPK Politburo.

Choe and her team negotiating with US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim