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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol stands for a photo with other NATO summit participants including King Felipe VI of Spain and US President Joe Biden on June 28, at the Royal Palace of Madrid. (Reuters/Yonhap News)

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a report Wednesday denouncing South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s attendance at this week’s NATO summit.

The piece, credited to Society for International Politics Study researcher Kim Hyo-myong, criticized South Korea’s officials as “volunteering to play the role of point man and bullet shield for ‘Eastern Crusade’ by NATO.”

In the KCNA piece titled “Asia-Pacific Is Not North Atlantic,” Kim wrote that “the authorities of south Korea and Japan are going to participate in NATO Summit in Spain for the first time in history.” The “authorities” in this case are Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, respectively.

As North Korea’s leading state-run news outlet for sharing Pyongyang’s views on foreign policy, the KCNA ranks alongside the Rodong Sinmun and Korean Central Television as one of the North’s three main media.

KCNA pieces credited to individual authorities are an approach often used by Pyongyang when it wants to express an opinion on foreign issues, while moderating its message by avoiding the statement of an official view. To date, North Korea has not expressed any official position on the Yoon administration.

Kim wrote, “South Korean authority has now shaken dark hands with NATO, a root cause of disaster. It will have to suffer from the most painful and severe security crisis and long-term incurable aftereffect of security unrest.”

“South Korean authority may have miscalculated that it can get praise from the U.S., its master and address its security concern if it comes under the umbrella of NATO. But it turned out that they have put their feet deep into the pit of fire,” he also said.

Describing NATO as “nothing but a perpetrator of the U.S. hegemonic strategy” and “simply a tool for local invasion,” Kim wrote, “NATO is responsible for bringing a disaster to Eastern Europe.”

“New strategic concept to be adopted in the coming NATO Summit includes the opposition to China,” he continued.

“The U.S. and south Korea are becoming all the more undisguised in their military moves against us on the Korean peninsula and its vicinity. All things considered, there is an ominous sign that dark waves of the North Atlantic will break the silence of the Pacific sooner or later,” he warned.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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