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Sin Hye-yong (left), the new interpreter for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, heads to the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel with North Korean State Affairs Commission Chief Secretary Kim Chang-son on Feb. 27. (Yonhap News)
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Trump’s uses same interpreter as for Singapore summit
North Korea has replaced its number-one interpreter. When North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump met at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel on the evening of Feb. 27, a new interpreter made her appearance at the public event. The White House was the first to announce that Kim’s interpreter had changed. According to a document that the White House distributed to reporters prior to the leaders’ social dinner on Wednesday evening, Kim was to be joined at the event by an interpreter named “Ms. Sin Hye Yong.” The fact that the interpreter listed on the document was not Kim Ju-song but Sin Hye-yong piqued reporters’ curiosity. During the first North Korea-US summit in Singapore last year, Kim was accompanied by the interpreter Kim Ju-song. Kim, a graduate of the English department at the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, is a member of the 8th Division of the International Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which is responsible for providing interpretation for Kim. He reportedly used to work in the translation department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was also mentioned in the book “Cryptography from the Third-Floor Secretariat,” by Thae Yong-ho, a former minister-level diplomat at the North Korean embassy to London. Sin Hye-yong’s assignment seems to have occurred sometime before the second summit. A female interpreter also appeared in place of Kim Ju-song when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Korea in Oct. 2018. Though it hasn’t been confirmed whether that interpreter was Sin Hye-yong, it seems likely that they were the same person. Nothing is known about the new number-one interpreter. But given her relaxed expression and calm voice during the causal chat between the two leaders on Wednesday evening, she appears to have pulled off her debut performance without a hitch. The interpretation for Trump was once again handled by Lee Yun-hyang, just as at the first summit. Lee is the chief of the US State Department’s interpreting services division. A graduate of the department of vocal music at Yonsei University and of the college of translation and interpretation at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, “Dr. Lee,” as she is called, has been working as a Korean-language interpreter at the US State Department since the early 2000s. By Lee You-jin, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
