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People walk through Tehran, Iran, on April 2, 2024, where a mural of Iranian missiles hangs off a building. (AFP/Yonhap)

North Korea announced that a delegation headed by its minister of external economic relations had recently left on a visit to Iran.

Both North Korea and Iran have close ties to Russia. Pyongyang now appears to be using its closeness with Moscow as leverage to expand its network of diplomatic pressure against Seoul.

On Wednesday, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that a delegation headed by Minister of External Economic Relations Yun Jong-ho had left on Tuesday for a visit to Iran.

Yun’s visit to Iran comes around three weeks after his return from visiting Russia between March 26 and April 2.

North Korea and Iran have long been suspected of collaborating in the areas of ballistic missile and nuclear technology. In particular, they have been actively selling and providing weapons to Russia since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has reportedly focused mainly on providing Russia with shells, while Iran has supplied ballistic missiles and Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.

In this context, analysts are speculating that the North Korean delegation’s visit will usher in more intensive military collaboration between the two sides, centering on their support for Russia. This would mean a greater likelihood of the North obtaining military technology from Iran in addition to Russia.

Many are voicing serious concerns that North Korea could end up with the technology for the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones that Russia is currently using in its war with Ukraine or for Iran’s solid-fuel hypersonic missiles.

Pyongyang’s decision to announce the delegation’s visit ahead of time and show off its strengthening relationship with Tehran is being interpreted as sending a message to both Seoul and Washington: a warning that if trilateral coordination by South Korea, the US and Japan intensifies, North Korea intends to pressure the South and rattle the US through stronger unity with China, Russia and Iran.

The North has also continued to view the prospect of a summit with Japan as a way of driving a wedge in the trilateral coordination with South Korea and the US.

Stronger military cooperation between North Korea and Iran would inevitably spell bad news for Seoul’s relationship with Tehran as well.

From Iran’s standpoint, there are now more factors pushing it to respond positively to the North’s calls for cooperation. Faced with the growing threat of war amid its recent exchanges of strikes with Israel, it could view a stronger relationship with Pyongyang as a means of pressuring Washington.

Yu Dal-seung, a professor of Persian and Iranian studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, noted, “When the US proposed a military coalition in the Strait of Hormuz in 2019, Iran responded by holding joint military exercises with China and Russia.”

“There’s a possibility that amid the high tensions with Israel and the US, Iran could try to sway the US ahead of its presidential election by beefing up cooperation with North Korea,” he suggested.

In another unusual development, the Nicaraguan government announced in its government bulletin on Tuesday that it had dismissed Zhenia Ruth Arce Cepeda as its ambassador to South Korea as of April 17.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed that the government of Nicaragua had informed Korea that it had decided to shutter its embassy in South Korea due to worsening financial conditions back home. Once the embassy closes, Seoul’s relations with the Central American country will be maintained through a non-resident ambassador in a third country taking on double duties. 

The development is seen as linked to Nicaragua’s establishment of an embassy in North Korea last July. The government of Nicaragua, known for its anti-US stance, has strenuously protested American-led sanctions placed on it and has recently been cozying up to Russia and China. 

China has also made a show of bolstering relations with North Korea, with Zhao Leji, the No. 3 in the Chinese Communist Party’s hierarchy, recently paying a visit to Pyongyang. During the period of whirlwind inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits between March 2018 and February 2019, Kim Jong-un paid four visits to China, and Xi Jinping visited North Korea in June 2019. But high-level exchanges between the two countries died down after the fact. 

Yet Beijing appeared to be spurred into action when it saw that its sway could be undermined when North Korea began pursuing closer relations with Russia. Cognizant of the US, Beijing is wary of being roped together in a framework of North Korea-China-Russia cooperation, it’s ramping up efforts to bolster its bilateral ties with Pyongyang. There’s a greater possibility of Kim making a trip to China later this year to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of ties between the two sides. 

By Park Min-hee, senior staff writer

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