The son of the highest-profile South Korean ever to defect to North Korea has reportedly defected to the communist state in a rare switch of political allegiance.

Choe In-guk said he had decided to “permanently resettle”in North Korea to honour his parents’ wish that he live there and devote himself to the unification of the Korean peninsula, according to North Korea’s propaganda website Uriminzokkiri.

His father, Choe Dok-shin, was a former South Korean foreign minister who emigrated to the US in 1976 with his wife, Ryu Mi-yong, after political disputes with Park Chung-hee, the then South Korean president.

They defected to North Korea a decade later, leaving behind two sons and three daughters.

Choe Dok-shin died three years later, while Ryu went on to hold high-profile positions in North Korea, including membership of the presidium of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament and chair of a minor political party that is effectively controlled by the ruling Workers’ party of North Korea.

After her death in 2016, aged 95, Ryu was given a public funeral and buried alongside her husband at Pyongyang’s Patriotic Martyrs cemetery.

Choe In-guk’s arrival in Pyongyang at the weekend is a minor propaganda coup for North Korea, as it struggles with international sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes.

The regime is expected to use his defection to claim that life is better in North Korea than on the southern side of the heavily fortified border that has separated the countries for more than 65 years.

Uriminzokkiri published images of Choe, 73, receiving flowers on his arrival at Pyongyang’s international airport on Saturday.

He said, according to the website: “To live in and follow a country for which I feel thankful is a path to protect the will left by my parents. So I’ve decided to permanently live in North Korea, albeit belatedly.”

South Korea’s unification ministry said Choe had not been granted special permission to make his latest visit to North Korea, but added he had made a dozen trips there since 2001, including to attend his mother’s funeral.

South Korean media said he had flown to Pyongyang via Beijing on a North Korean government-issued visa.

More than 30,000 North Koreans have fled poverty, famine and political repression to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war.

While it is rare for South Koreans to defect to North Korea, a small number of North Koreans who escaped to South Korea have said they wanted to return home.