SEOUL, South Korea — A colonel belonging to North Korea’s spy agency recently defected to South Korea, the South announced on Monday. He is one of the highest-ranking North Korean military officers known to have defected to South Korea in recent decades.

The Defense and Unification Ministries of South Korea would confirm only that a colonel from the North’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance had recently defected, declining to provide further details.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap, which earlier reported the officer’s defection, said he arrived in South Korea last year. A few South Korean news outlets also reported on Monday that a North Korean diplomat stationed in Africa defected to the South last May. The government confirmed that defection as well.

The revelations followed South Korea’s confirmation on Friday that 13 North Koreans working for a North Korean government-run restaurant abroad had defected to the South a day earlier.