North Korea's deputy ambassador in London has defected with his family, according to media reports, in what would be one of the highest-profile defections in recent years from the increasingly isolated country.

South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported on Tuesday that a high-profile diplomat in the U.K. had defected with his wife and son to a "third country." The BBC named the defector as veteran diplomat Thae Yong Ho, a counselor at the North Korean Embassy and deputy to the ambassador.

Quoting an unnamed source, JoongAng Ilbo said the diplomat had embarked on a defection journey "following a scrupulous plan" and was in the process of "landing in a third country as an asylum seeker."