Author: Daniel Wertz
August 2016

Last Updated by Jean H. Lee
June 2024

(Previous Edition: August 2016)

Introduction

North Korea’s foreign policy has been marked by several distinct stages since the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948. In its earliest years, North Korea maintained diplomatic ties exclusively with Eastern Bloc countries, along with the People’s Republic of China and Vietnamese revolutionaries. In the 1960s and 1970s, North Korea began reaching out to Third World countries emerging from colonialism, competing with South Korea for diplomatic recognition and legitimacy1. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, North Korea increased diplomatic contact with capitalist countries, including the United States, Japan, Britain and European nations2.

North Korea’s state ideology of Juche has emphasized independence in foreign affairs,3 but this has not always meant diplomatic or economic isolation. North Korea has developed different policies regarding diplomatic outreach in the context of changing geopolitical environments, and has established relations with a number of countries, with notable exceptions: North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with the United States or Japan. (For decades, until 2024, relations with South Korea were treated as an inter-Korean matter, separate from foreign affairs).

Steady diplomatic outreach brought the number of states and nations with formal relations with North Korea to a high of 166 nations in 20144. That number is believed to stand at 160 states as of June 2024.

Not all nations have an ambassador accredited to North Korea or a diplomatic presence or mission in Pyongyang. Many countries base diplomatic staff handling North Korean affairs at their embassies in Beijing or Seoul, and North Korea has not always permitted non-resident ambassadors to present their credentials in Pyongyang. At the start of 2024, there were 24 diplomatic missions in Pyongyang, with Nicaraguan officials announcing that Managua would open an embassy in Pyongyang as well5. China and Russia also maintain consulates in the northeastern North Korean city of Chongjin6. Additionally, Switzerland7 and Italy have had representative offices in Pyongyang while France, which does not have formal diplomatic relations with North Korea, has had a Cooperation and Cultural Action Office in Pyongyang8.

However, in the months after North Korea sealed its borders in January 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many embassies and cooperation offices temporarily shut their doors, with most foreign diplomats and aid workers leaving Pyongyang9. Most missions remained temporarily closed as of June 2024 but were expected to begin opening up later in the year.

Meanwhile, in 2023, North Korea shuttered nearly a fifth of its embassies abroad, reducing its presence overseas to 44 diplomatic missions abroad as of February 2024, according to data posted by the South Korea’s Foreign Ministry10, though news reports suggested there were additional embassy closures not reflected in that count. That count was down from 53 missions abroad the previous year.

Foreign Embassies in Pyongyang/Countries Hosting DPRK Embassies

North Korea's Missions Abroad12

From 1948 to 1950s: Limited Diplomatic Relationships

Upon their establishment as independent states in 1948, both the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) claimed to be the sole legitimate government of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea was recognized by the United Nations and several Western states after declaring independence in 1948, while North Korea initially established relations only with fellow Marxist states. The Soviet Union was intimately involved in the establishment and early years of North Korea, while the Chinese intervention in the Korean War led to a relationship that Mao Zedong declared to be “as close as lips and teeth.”

North Korean Missions est. 1948-1950

Late-1950s through 1960s: Non-Aligned Diplomacy

Two major factors affecting North Korea’s approach to foreign policy in the decades after the Korean War were the split between the Soviet Union and China, and the emergence of post-colonial states and the Non-Aligned Movement.

After Joseph Stalin’s death, as the Soviet Union promoted “peaceful coexistence” with the United States under Nikita Khrushchev, North Korea joined China in denouncing Soviet “revisionism.” However, after the launch of the Cultural Revolution in China, North Korea moved toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union.13. North Korea continued a policy of balancing its relationship with the two communist powers throughout the Cold War, often attempting to play one against the other.

Although neither North Korea nor South Korea was invited to the 1955 Bandung Conference, which established the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement, North Korea responded positively to burgeoning Third World solidarity14. North Korean relations with a non-Marxist regime were first established with the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1958 while the FLN was in the midst of its war against French rule. In the 1960s, as many newly independent nations joined the United Nations, North Korea expanded its diplomatic relations, particularly in Africa. By the late 1960s, South Korea ended its policy of maintaining diplomatic ties only with countries that did not recognize the North, allowing the scope of diplomatic outreach for both Koreas to expand15.

North Korean Missions est. 1958-1969

1970s: Expanded Diplomatic Outreach

As Third World countries increased their influence in the arena of world politics, North Korea continued building ties with nations in Africa and Asia, particularly reaching out to those countries where China had begun seeking to exert economic and diplomatic influence16. Additionally, North Korea initiated new outreach to the West in an effort to develop its economy. Although North Korea began building trade relationships with many Western European countries during this period, its diplomatic efforts were limited to European countries with strong left-wing parties, such as Portugal and Denmark, and neutral countries, including Austria and Switzerland17

During this period, North Korea also joined several international organizations such as the World Health Organization. In 1975, Pyongyang was admitted to the Non-Aligned Movement, to the exclusion of Seoul. Additionally, North Korea established observer missions to the United Nations, although it rejected South Korean proposals to jointly enter the UN as full members18.

By the late 1970s, North Korea’s diplomatic momentum began to lag, caused in part by tense inter-Korean relations, the North’s default on foreign loans, and reports of drug smuggling by its diplomats (in 1976-77, North Korean diplomats were accused of smuggling drugs into countries as far-ranging as Norway, Venezuela and India.)19. Additionally, North Korea’s support for revolutionary groups led to several countries temporarily or permanently suspending their relationships with North Korea during this period20.

North Korean Missions est. 1970-1979

1980s: Faltering Outreach

During the 1980s, the pace of North Korea’s establishment of new diplomatic relations slowed considerably. The country’s links to terrorist acts abroad, its economic weakness relative to South Korea, and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc all contributed to this dynamic over the course of the decade21.

North Korea’s terrorist attack in Burma (now known as Myanmar) in 198322 and its bombing of Korean Airlines Flight 858 in 198723 drew strong international condemnation. Burma, which had relations with both North Korea and South Korea, “de-recognized” the DPRK and expelled North Korean officials in response to the attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon (now known as Yangon)24

By the end of the decade, North Korea’s foreign policy hit a nadir as the Eastern Bloc began to collapse. In the run-up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea announced a new foreign policy of Nordpolitik, which entailed reaching out to North Korea’s traditional communist allies. By 1989, this policy had begun to bear fruit as Seoul established relations with Eastern European countries in return for economic assistance, ending the Eastern Bloc policy of exclusively recognizing Pyongyang. The prospect of access to South Korean trade and capital would soon lead to China and the Soviet Union’s recognition of South Korea25.

North Korean Missions est. 1980-1989

*Mexico temporarily downgraded its diplomatic relationship with North Korea in 2017 in line with UN sanctions; later resumed.
**Peru downgraded its diplomatic relationship with North Korea in 2017 in line with UN sanctions.

1990s: Growing Isolation, New Outreach

The Soviet and Chinese recognition of South Korea, in 1990 and 1992, respectively, was a major diplomatic blow to North Korea. The shift in the dynamics of international politics at the end of the Cold War led Pyongyang to drop its longstanding opposition to entering the UN jointly with Seoul, with both Koreas joining the global body in 1991. While North Korea quickly established relations with most of the successor states of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, its nuclear program and political system largely precluded broader diplomatic recognition during this period. The collapse of the Soviet bloc also resulted in major cuts in aid to North Korea, contributing to the country’s economic collapse and famine in the mid-1990s. With a severely reduced budget, North Korea closed many of its embassies between 1993 and 200126.

Nevertheless, during this decade, North Korea began undertaking dialogue with longtime foes. Talks with South Korea began in the early 1990s, resulting in the 1991 Basic Agreement on reconciliation and cooperation, and the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Inter-Korean dialogue was largely suspended after Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, but resumed with President Kim Dae-jung’s “Sunshine Policy” later in the decade as Kim Jong Il took power.

Japan, meanwhile, held eight rounds of Foreign Ministry talks with North Korea, in 1991 and 1992, on normalizing relations. But the negotiations faltered as North Korea refused to discuss its suspected abductions of Japanese citizens.

Amid tensions over its burgeoning nuclear program, North Korea also began to engage in dialogue with the United States during this period. In 1994, the two countries signed the Agreed Framework on North Korea’s nuclear program, which outlined steps to freeze and eventually dismantle the program in exchange for energy assistance and light-water reactors. The Agreed Framework also pledged that the two countries would "move toward full normalization of political and economic relations," among other commitments.

The United States and North Korea began to engage in regular dialogue during this period – including a visit by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang in 2000 while Bill Clinton was president. However, in 2002, his successor, President George W. Bush, labeled North Korea one of the nations that formed an “Axis of Evil,” casting a chill on nascent efforts to build relations. Washington and Pyongyang did not normalize relations and did not make irreversible progress toward denuclearization before the deal effectively broke down in late 2002.

North Korean Missions est. 1990-1999

*Ukraine severed relations with North Korea in July 2022.

2000s: Sunshine, the European Union, and Six-Party Talks

Meanwhile, in July 2000, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held a historic summit with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung that ushered in a period of blossoming inter-Korean relations known as the “Sunshine Era.” The policy of engagement produced joint projects such as the Kaesong factory park and tourism in North Korea.

North Korea also hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit in July 2000 – the first time a Russian or Soviet leader had visited Pyongyang – and hosted Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2002, another first.

North Korea also began to broaden diplomatic ties with European countries. In 2001, North Korea established diplomatic relations with the European Union27, with EU country embassies in Pyongyang alternating as the EU representative office28. Pyongyang, too, opened embassies abroad in the early 2000s: in Italy29, Germany and Britain, as well as in South Africa.

However, North Korea’s international outreach stalled after the Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea broke down in late 2002. Seeking to resolve the nuclear crisis, China hosted the Six- Party Talks process starting in 2003, which included discussions about normalizing U.S.-DPRK relations. The talks collapsed before any normalization of relations occurred. North Korea’s relationship with Japan also worsened during this period. Kim Jong Il’s 2002 acknowledgement that North Korea had systematically abducted Japanese citizens sparked animosity in Japan and spurred Japanese reluctance to address other issues until the matter was fully resolved.

Despite the slowdown in opening new diplomatic relationships during this period, the DPRK did establish ties with several countries while the Six-Party Talks were ongoing, and notably re-established its relationship with Myanmar in 2007. However, since the end of the Six-Party Talks, the DPRK has established formal diplomatic relations only with the newly independent country of South Sudan.

North Korean Missions est. 2000-2011

*The United Arab Emirates announced in October 2017, through its state media, that it had terminated diplomatic ties with North Korea.30

2010s: New Leader, New Relationships

As the Six-Party Talks process frayed in 2008, the Sunshine era came to an end as well with the election of conservative President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul, who took a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang. After Kim Jong Il suffered a debilitating stroke in August 2008, North Korea began turning inward as the leadership focused on paving the way for a new leader. Kim Jong Un assumed leadership upon his father’s death in December 2011. The young new leader embarked on a campaign to consolidate power and gain legitimacy that included purges at home, most notably the execution of an influential uncle with expansive networks abroad, and intensified testing of ballistic missiles and nuclear devices. The tests drew widespread international condemnation. A UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea report also sharpened focus on the regime’s human rights record. Soon after, Botswana terminated diplomatic relations with North Korea31.

As the testing continued, the UN Security Council, led by the United States and with the support of China and Russia, passed five rounds of sanctions in 2016 and 2017 that aimed to strangle North Korea’s ability to funnel money into its weapons program. UN Security Council Resolution 232132, adopted in November 2016 after North Korea's fifth nuclear test, called on UN member nations to downgrade the North Korean presence at its missions abroad. Many complied, with a number of nations temporarily expelling resident North Korean ambassadors, including Italy, Peru, Kuwait, Spain and Mexico33. The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, announced in October 2017, through its state media, that it had terminated diplomatic ties with North Korea34.

In another round of UN sanctions in 2017, UN member nations were instructed to send North Korean workers home by December 201935.

During this period, a number of high-level diplomats defected from the regime – from Britain, Italy and Kuwait – and Kim Jong Un’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, was poisoned at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia, triggering a period of tense relations between the longtime friends.

After conducting a fourth nuclear test and carrying out multiple long-range ballistic missile tests, Kim Jong Un declared himself satisfied with his weapons program in late 2017. On New Year’s Day 2018, he extended an olive branch to South Korea, offering to send athletes to the Pyeongchang Olympics taking place that winter in South Korea. Engagement-focused South Korean President Moon Jae-in accepted the offer and welcomed Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and other high-level officials to the Opening Ceremony in the first such visit to South Korea by a Kim family member since the Korean War.

The inter-Korean rapprochement led to an unprecedented season of summitry for North Korea: summits with President Moon at the DMZ and in Pyongyang, followed by summits with US President Donald Trump, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping in 2018 and 2019 as Kim stepped out onto the world stage.

In the midst of the flowering of diplomacy, Venezuela opened an embassy in Pyongyang in 201936.

Talks with Trump, however, did not lead to a nuclear deal in Singapore in July 2018 or Hanoi in February 2019. Kim and Trump met again at the DMZ in July 2019 for an impromptu summit, but failed to break an impasse over denuclearization. By the end of the year, Pyongyang had again retreated into isolation.

2020s: Isolation and Shifting Allegiances

In late January 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pyongyang sealed its borders from all traffic of people and goods. The border restrictions left scores of North Koreans stranded abroad, including at least one ambassador. Thousands of IT workers, whose visas should have expired in December 2019, are believed to have remained abroad. (US authorities accused them of engaging in cyber theft to fund their stays as well as to funnel illicit funding to the regime37.)

Covid restrictions compelled most foreign diplomats and aid workers to leave North Korea between 2020 and 2023. The departures forced the temporary closures of most foreign missions in Pyongyang.

As his country remained sequestered in isolation, Kim Jong Un ramped up testing and development of his nuclear arsenal. US authorities accused Pyongyang of commanding hackers to generate the funds to support the program and his regime, and redoubled efforts to hamper the North Korean illicit financing campaign, in part by leaning on traditional allies as well as nations once friendly to Pyongyang to enforce UN sanctions.

In March 2021, in response to a request from Washington, Malaysia extradited a North Korean national to face charges of money laundering – the first ever extradition of a North Korean to the United States. North Korea, in turn, severed diplomatic ties with Malaysia.

As North Korea slowly began re-opening its borders in 2023, Pyongyang’s new priorities became clear: to deepen ties with traditional allies China and Russia, as well smaller socialist friends such as Nicaragua and Venezuela, while continuing to spurn the United States and its allies, particularly South Korea38.

After Kim Jong Un made his first trip abroad since the pandemic – to Russia’s Far East, to meet Putin in September – the White House accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with artillery and weapons, in violation of UN sanctions. Russia, in turn, vetoed the renewal of the mandate of a UN panel to investigate DPRK sanctions violations. In July 2024, Putin made a state visit to Pyongyang.

Ukraine severed diplomatic relations with North Korea in July 2022 after the DPRK recognized two Russian-occupied eastern territories of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent39.

Nicaragua, which shares North Korea’s frustration over US-led sanctions, opted to close its embassy in Seoul40 and announced it would open an embassy in Pyongyang41.

Meanwhile, after re-opening its borders, North Korea’s leadership moved to scale down the nation’s presence abroad. By the end of 2023, North Korea appeared to have closed nine diplomatic missions – nearly a fifth of its embassies: in Angola, Uganda, Guinea, Nepal, Senegal, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo42., Libya and Hong Kong43.. In November 2023, a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the decision to shut missions abroad in a statement posted to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)44.

Kim Jong Un also redefined inter-Korean relations by renouncing the long-held goal of reunification with South Korea in January 202445. He urged North Koreans to think of South Korea as their country’s “primary foe and invariable principal enemy” and recategorized South Korea as a foreign country, rather than as Korean “compatriots.”

Dates diplomatic relations established, alphabetical order

i. Relations initially established with the National Liberation Front, prior to Algeria winning independence.
ii. Relations severed in June 1977.
iii. Relations suspended from November 1975 to May 2000.
iv. Relations severed in February 2014.
v. Relations suspended in September 1973; later resumed.
vi. Relations severed; date unclear.
vii. Relations suspended from 1987 to 2002.
viii. Relations suspended January 1985; later resumed.
ix. Relations severed in October 1980.
x. Relations suspended in August 1986; later resumed.
xi. Relations suspended in 2017; diplomatic ties were later restored but severed again in March 2021. See Reuters, “Malaysia to reopen embassy in North Korea - Mahathir,” June 11, 2018. <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-malaysia/malaysia-to-reop…;
xii. Relations suspended from June 1977 to March 1980.
xiii. DPRK ambassador expelled and relations temporarily downgraded in 2017 in line with UN sanctions; later resumed.
xiv. Relations suspended from November 1983 to April 2007.
xv. The State of Palestine has limited international diplomatic recognition.
xvi. DPRK ambassador expelled, relations temporarily downgraded in 2017 in line with UN sanctions.
xvii. Diplomatic relations reportedly terminated in 2017.
xviii. Diplomatic relations downgraded in 2017 before being restored in 2019. <https://mofa.gov.qa/en/qatar/latest-articles/latest-news/details/2019/1…;
xix. Assumed diplomatic relations from the Soviet Union.
xx. Assumed diplomatic relations from Yugoslavia.
xxi. DPRK ambassador expelled, relations downgraded in 2017.
xxii. Relations suspended from March 1971 to March 1975.
xxiii. Diplomatic relations suspended in 2017.
xxiv. Relations initially established with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, during the French Indochina War.
xxv. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the government declared by the Polisario Front, has limited international diplomatic recognition.