While Kim Jong-un basks in the afterglow of his recent visit to Russia, North Korea is scaling back its presence overseas, with reported plans to close almost a quarter of its diplomatic missions blamed on its sanctions-hit economy.
While the regime moves closer to China and Russia amid new tensions on the Korean peninsula, years of UN-led sanctions have forced it to close embassies and consulates in as many as a dozen locations, including those in countries Pyongyang views as longtime allies.
North Korea sealed its border with China at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, effectively shutting itself off from its biggest trading partner, while the UN continued to punish the regime over its development of weapons of mass destruction.
But Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the embassy closures were evidence that the North Korean economy was in crisis, with increases in its trade deficit and lower foreign currency reserves.
The closures also highlight a shift in Pyongyang’s diplomatic strategy that has seen it move closer to Russia and China in response to the arrival of a hardline administration in Seoul and the failure of Donald Trump’s “nuclear diplomacy”.
During their recent summit, Kim and Vladimir Putin are thought to have agreed a deal in which the North will supply the Kremlin with ammunition for its war in Ukraine, possibly in return for Russian help with Pyongyang’s space programme.
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