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Cuban Council of State vice president Salvador Valdes Mesa meets (North) Korean Workers‘ Party Central Committee vice chairman Choe Ryong-hae

A special envoy for Cuban leader Raul Castro visited Pyongyang, the Rodong Sinmun and other North Korean news outlets reported on June 29.

The visit by Council of State vice president Salvador Valdes Mesa on behalf of Castro, appears to be in response to a May 21 visit to Cuba by Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) Central Committee vice chairman Kim Yong-chol as a special envoy for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Valdes’s visit is noteworthy in two regards. First, it comes just after South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se became the first person in his post to visit Cuba for bilateral ministerial talks on June 5.

A second focus of attention is on whether Kim, who rarely receives foreign visitors, will meet with Valdes’s group. In Sept. 2015, Kim met in North Korea with visiting Council of State first vice president Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is expected to succeed Castro.

The situation suggests a triangular diplomatic game taking shape among South and North Korea and Cuba.

On June 28, KWP Central Committee vice chairman Choe Ryong-hae met with Valdes’s group at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang, while Valdes provided an explanation on the outcome of the PCC‘s congress from Apr. 16 to 19, the Rodong Sinmun reported.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) also reported that the KWP Central Committee held a banquet on June 28 to welcome the group. During the banquet, Central Committee vice chairman and foreign minister Ri Su-yong declared Pyongyang’s plans to “work actively and consistently to expand develop our traditional relationship of good will and cooperation with Cuba’s party and people,” while Valdes announced Havana’s plans to “continue solidifying and developing brotherly relations with the people of North Korea,” the KCNA reported.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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