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Strategic Vision vol. 9, no. 46 (June, 2020)
India-DPRK Relations New Delhi keeping channels of communication open with Pyongyang regime Prashant Kumar Singh
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y all available information, India remains the second-largest trading partner of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea. Although India’s compliance with UN sanctions has reduced the value of this bilateral trade to the point that it is almost negligible, being the country’s second-largest trading partner has a symbolic value. Intermittent contacts between officials and the now largely symbolic—yet ongoing—trade linkages underline India’s position as a rare window to the world for the notoriously insular Hermit Kingdom. India’s former Minister of State for External Affairs Vijay Kumar Singh made an unannounced visit to the DPRK in May 2018. According to then Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, the visit was made at the invitation of DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, extended during the Mid-Term Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), held the previous month in Baku, Azerbaijan. During that meeting, Ri reminded Swaraj that neither the India-DPRK Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) nor the Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) had been held for many years, and urged India to send its external affairs minister to Pyongyang immediately. The low-key visit was consistent with India’s practice
Moreover, North Korea has received humanitarian aid from India, including through the UN World Food Program (WFP) in 2011 and 2016. It has been a regular participant in the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program and the Professional Course for Foreign Diplomats (PCFD), run by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), though its ITEC slots have significantly decreased since 2016, most probably due to non-utilization. This pattern indicates that India has been attempting to maintain a delicate balance between nurturing relations with the DPRK and complying with UN sanctions against that country. Singh’s visit was notable for two reasons. First, a ministerial visit from the Indian side had not taken place in 20 years, although ministers from the DPRK have visited India during this period. Second, Singh’s visit took place at a time when the Singapore summit between Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, then being planned for June 2018, seemed to be in jeopardy. The urgent invitation was therefore hard to ignore. The usual circumspection would have suggested to India not to time the visit when the region was dealing with many uncertainties. Also, significantly enough, the visit was preceded by the appointment
of quietly maintaining engagement with the DPRK. It has welcomed North Korean ministers and other high-ranking officials from time to time, the last being an April 2015 visit by Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong.
of an officer from the Indian Foreign Service (IFS)— the first in more than five years—as Ambassador to the DPRK. Furthermore, in what was reported as an unusually swift process for the DPRK, Atul Malhari
Dr. Prashant Kumar Singh is an associate fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses who focuses on India’s engagement with East Asia. He can be reached at prashant.idsa@gmail.com