[1] From 2000 until 2012 Kim was the DPRK ambassador for Ethiopia in Addis Ababa and, since 2011, also for South Sudan in Juba.
[citation needed] The Madrid embassy was later raided by members of Free Joseon on February 22, 2019, just prior to the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit.
Replacing Choe Son-hui, the Vice Foreign Minister, Kim became the chief nuclear negotiator of the DPRK in February 2019.
[3] As the counterpart to Stephen E. Biegun, the American envoy, Kim participated in the Hanoi Summit on February 27 and 28 that was abruptly terminated.
In May 2019 the South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo claimed that, in the aftermath of the failed Hanoi summit, Kim Hyok-chol and another four officials had been executed at Mirim Airport, Sadong-guyok, Pyongyang in March 2019.