Dawning diplomacy? Flurry of trips suggests North Korea needs new allies

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/north-korea-dawning-diplomacy-new-allies

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High-ranking North Korean officials have been sent on separate trips to Russia, Cuba and Equatorial Guinea this week in a gesture that suggests the notoriously secretive state could be changing its attitude to international diplomacy.

The unprecedented visits, publicised by the state news agency KCNA, have fuelled speculation that the country could be searching for new allies as tensions with South Korea intensify and it faces worsening drought.

“The reason why Russia and North Korea seem to be actively talking is because the DPRK really has no other allies as its relations with China, Japan and South Korea have been unstable to say at the least,” says Cho Han-bum, senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

On Tuesday the chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, Choe Thae Bok, left the DPRK as part of a diplomatic tour, KCNA revealed.

A spokesman for the Russian parliament’s upper house reportedly confirmed the meeting, saying the DPRK envoy would meet Russian upper house of parliament speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, one of the most powerful women in Russian politics. Matviyenko has been subjected to US sanctions since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis.

North Korean analyst John Grisafi, intelligence director of NK News, says that by sending experienced, high-level party members the country aims to do more than just meet and greet. Choe has held multiple senior party posts, Grisafi says, including acting as head of international affairs for the workers’ party.

“His going abroad suggests more substance than ceremony and he likely has more authority to work out something meaningful and not simply be a token presence,” Grisafi says.

North Korea has also dispatched Political Bureau member and secretary of the Party Central Committee Kang Sok Ju to Cuba, reportedly to discuss food aid.

“Kang Sok Ju also has a focus on foreign affairs and is currently international affairs secretary for the party. In many cases with North Korea, the party official responsible for a given issue is usually more seriously influential than their counterpart in the government ministries,” Grisafi said.

As part of this week’s diplomatic outreach, the DPRK also sent foreign minister Ri Su Yong to Equatorial Guinea, in what is likely the first stop on what KCNA has called a tour of “some African states”.

The trip to the continent by a high-ranking official is the second of its kind within nine months, after North Korea’s de facto head of state, Kim Yong-nam, visited Uganda, Sudan and the Republic of Congo in October.

Changing attitudes?

But is the famously secretive state really changing its attitude to diplomacy?

Sources have suggested these trips are a reaction to the opening of a new United Nations office in the South Korean capital, Seoul, tasked with investigating human rights abuses, a move which is reported to have riled the North.

On Monday the DPRK withdrew from an international sporting event to be held in Gwangju in South Korea, citing the new UN office as the principal reason for not participating.

“The DPRK would not be able to attend the games because of the UN office that is planning an investigation on Kim Jong-un’s human rights violations,” unification researcher Cho added.

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo, a national daily newspaper, has suggested that North Korea’s sudden interest in outreach could be a reaction to the ongoing drought.

KCNA and international aid groups have drawn attention to the low rainfall that could have serious impact on the DPRK’s agricultural sector, threatening its already fragile economy.