[Kiho Han's Column] Challenges Left by the Belarusian President's Visit to Pyongyang

Dr. Kiho Han, Director (Associate Professor) of the Research Laboratory at the Ajou University Institute for Unification Studies and Affiliated Research Fellow at CUKPE

Last Wednesday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko became the first head of state to visit North Korea. Now that the Middle East crisis shows signs of becoming protracted, why did North Korea invite the leader of an Eastern European country, located over 6,500 kilometers away, to Pyongyang? The Russo-U.S. war, which has already been ongoing for four years, has transcended a mere regional dispute and become a fuse shaking the U.S.-led international order established since World War II to its core. Amidst this massive tectonic shift, North Korea is moving nimbly to create a window of opportunity for survival. Following the Russo-U.S. war, North Korea views the Middle East crisis as another window of opportunity to expand its national room for maneuver. U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere are already exhausted by the seemingly endless Russo-U.S. war. With each country already engaged in a trade war against the U.S. involving tariffs, it is evident that they do not want to be entangled in the Middle East crisis, which was triggered by the U.S. and Israel and lacks even a clear justification for participation.

Time is not on the U.S.'s side. On the 25th, Charbel Antoun, a Washington D.C.-based journalist, [stated] a political news outletI have previously warned in a contribution that Russia and China could escalate the situation into a protracted war that the United States cannot win through quiet support for Iran. Currently, a ridiculous situation has arisen where the U.S. is easing sanctions on crude oil from Russia and Iran to stabilize soaring international oil prices, and the resulting imports from these two countries are, in turn, supporting the supply of war materials. It is almost a rule that a prolonged war worsens domestic public opinion. Is there a need to reaffirm, through Iran, the lessons already learned by U.S. Presidents Harry Truman, George Bush, and Lyndon Johnson from the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq? North Korea perceives the paradox brought about by this war situation and the loose solidarity among like-minded nations as an opportunity for anti-Western forces to rally, and seems to believe that the dispersion of U.S. strategic assets could accelerate the "multipolar order" they advocate. North Korea is taking swift diplomatic steps, ranging from Kim Jong-un's visit to Russia in 2023, Putin's visit to North Korea and the signing of a new treaty between North Korea and Russia in 2024, to the deployment of troops to Kursk, participation in China's Victory Day celebrations in 2025, the first visit to North Korea by the General Secretary of Vietnam in 18 years, and the first visit to North Korea by the President of Belarus in 2026.

North Korea has recently characterized the situation in the Middle East as an "illegal and outrageous act of aggression" and "the most heinous infringement of sovereignty," and has focused its arrows of criticism on the United States regarding Middle Eastern issues. Regarding the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas in 2023, it published a commentary in the Korean Central News Agency (October 23) stating that "the culprit behind the Middle East crisis is the United States," and following Israel's airstrike on Iran in 2025, it issued a statement of condemnation against the U.S. and Israel six days later (June 19), accusing them of "fanning the flames of war." The arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro by U.S. forces, the deaths of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and former National Security Council Secretary Larijani in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, and the subsequent demise of Larijani likely reminded North Korea of ​​Trump's "fire and fury" in 2017. Regrettably, no country on Earth now believes that North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons.

Belarus has pursued a pro-Russian policy since the tenure of President Lukashenko and is a country that has thoroughly represented Russia's position regarding the Russo-Ugric War by sharing military bases. Although it established diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1992, it was not until 2019 that North Korea dispatched an ambassador (Ju Jong-bong) to the Minsk region. Since the Belarusian government has largely adhered to international norms—such as freezing accounts violating UN sanctions in 2016 and expelling agents from North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau in December 2017—it is difficult to view meaningful diplomatic relations between the two countries as having existed. However, following the Russo-Ugric War, the foreign ministers of both nations (Choe Son-hui and Ryzhenkopf) met during the 19th Non-Aligned Movement Summit held in Uganda in 2024 to seek deepening bilateral cooperation, and it appears they sought to strengthen relations by traveling between North Korea in July 2025 and Belarus in October 2025. The decisive turning point was during China's Victory Day celebrations in September of the same year, when Chairman Kim Jong-un met with President Lukashenko, which progressed to the point of exporting items prohibited by sanctions in February of this year. Although military cooperation was not included in the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the two countries, it contains provisions for expanding cooperation in various fields, including politics, economy, and science and technology, as well as a shared stance on establishing a multipolar world order and an anti-Western policy. It is by no means a coincidence that President Lukashenko visited the Liberation Tower in Pyongyang, a symbol of the blood alliance between North Korea and the Soviet Union, and laid a wreath. This can be interpreted as an expression of North Korea's active and strategic will to establish itself as a key pillar of the anti-Western coalition, forming a belt of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, amidst the unprecedented closeness between the two pro-Russian nations linked by Russia.

The Belarusian President's recent visit to North Korea also needs to be viewed in the context of the 9th Party Congress, which concluded last month. Through the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea and the Supreme People's Assembly held last February and March, North Korea declared an aggressive diplomatic strategy to put an end to the U.S.-centered "unipolar system" and establish its own "multipolar order." At this Party Congress, a turning point intended to consolidate the ruling regime while determining the foreign policy line for the next five years, Chairman Kim assessed the past five years in his report summarizing the party's work as a "successful period in which the state's status was irreversibly and firmly solidified" by participating in changes in the global political landscape, such as the Russo-U.S. War. Regarding South Korea, he coldly redefined it as "the most hostile state" and "an object to be thoroughly rejected," declaring that the standards for military response would be completely different. This reveals an intention to discard rhetoric regarding "nation" and "unification," define the Korean Peninsula issue as an international dispute between states, and incorporate it into a multipolar world order. This was reaffirmed in Chairman Kim’s policy speech during the first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly held in March, where he declared his resolve to “recognize South Korea as the most hostile state” and “reject it through clear words and actions,” even though the specific articles of the constitutional amendment remained undisclosed. This severance of ties with the South naturally shifts attention beyond national borders; coincidentally, it is noteworthy that Iran and Belarus, currently subject to international sanctions, are the 9th and 10th member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an anti-Western security and economic bloc led by China and Russia. This makes them suitable benchmarks for North Korea, which is seeking new avenues for external expansion.

Of particular note is the meeting in Minsk on the 19th between Belarusian President Lukashenko and President Trump’s special envoy, John Coell. It was reported that 250 political prisoners were released the following day following a promise by the U.S. to ease sanctions on Belarusian financial institutions; given their position of ultimately needing to seek improved relations with the West through summits with the U.S., this situation bears a striking resemblance to North Korea. While there are observations that Belarus could step forward as a mediator in North Korea-U.S. relations in the future, this currently appears to be a somewhat premature expectation.

As North Korea leverages the multipolar order to build an aggressive coalition connecting Eastern Europe and the Middle East, our response strategy must also become multi-dimensional and precise. Since most of North Korea's friendly nations also maintain diplomatic relations with South Korea, we must counter its bloc-alignment strategy by pursuing a "second Northern Diplomacy" through official and unofficial channels, utilizing our enhanced diplomatic capabilities—as seen in the recent establishment of ties between South Korea and Cuba or Syria. Amidst the rapidly changing international landscape, the strength to formulate and manage complex security and diplomatic strategies to prevent the situation on the Korean Peninsula from spiraling out of control stems solely from the proactive and independent thinking of the parties involved.

(This article was originally published as a column in Aju News in Korean and translated into English with the help of Google Translate. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not represent the official stance of the center.)