India-DPRK Relations

Strategic Vision vol. 9, no. 46 (June, 2020)

New Delhi keeping channels of communication open with Pyongyang regime

Prashant Kumar Singh

The North Korean Embassy in the Czech Republic.

photo: Krokodyl

By 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 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. 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 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

Gotsurve assumed his post on May 14, 2018, a mere nine days after his arrival. Singh reached Pyongyang on May 15, 2018. It is conceivable that, notwithstanding the supposed spontaneity of the invitation, consultations regarding the summit may have been behind this visit.

Continued cooperation

India’s cessation of ministerial visits after 1998 appeared to have been the result of tensions between the United States and North Korea on the nuclear issue, as well as on North Korea-Pakistan nuclear and missile cooperation. However, foreign ministry officials continued to meet under the FOC mechanism. Cooperation in ITEC and PCFD and India’s aid to the DPRK continued, and Pyongyang donated US$30,000 in aid to India after a Tsunami devastated its eastern coast in 2004. The relationship remained a low priority for India in the 2000s, but the establishment of Joint Secretary-Director General (JSDG) level talks in 2013 signaled a change in India’s approach toward the country. After this point, the annual reports released by the Indian MEA started mentioning North Korea by name, pointing out Pyongyang’s support for India’s candidature in various specialized UN agencies.

After Ri Su-yong’s visit to India in April 2015, during which he reportedly asked India to include the DPRK in its Act East Policy, Singh’s visit conveyed New Delhi’s desire to encompass the DPRK within the ambit of this policy, whose aim is to boost relations with the vast Asia-Pacific region. Then Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju issued a statement after attending an event held at the North Korean Embassy in New Delhi in September 2015.

“We have been discussing inside the government ways and means of upgrading bilateral ties … ever since the North Korean Foreign Minister visited Delhi last April [2015]… there should not be the usual old hurdles and suspicion… as North Korea is an independent country and also a member of the United Nations. A relationship based on greater trade and commerce … is the way ahead,” Rijiju’s statement read.

In September 2017, the United States suggested that India pare down its ties with North Korea. However, during a meeting with then US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in October 2017, Swaraj advised that “some of their [US’s] friendly countries should maintain embassies there so that some channels of communication are kept open.” After the meeting, Tillerson told the media in Geneva that Indians think that their embassy in Pyongyang “has a value as a conduit for communications” between the United States and North Korea, and that this assessment could be correct.

Shared perspectives

During his visit, DPRK representatives shared their perspectives on some of the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula with Singh, who in turn reiterated India’s support for the DPRK’s peace initiative with South Korea. Furthermore, responding to India’s concerns in the context of the proliferation linkages with what amounts to the North Korea-Pakistan nexus, DPRK officials assured him that their government would never allow any action that threatens Indian security.

They also discussed cooperation in vocational education, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and promotion of Yoga and traditional medicines. To mark 45 years of diplomatic relations, they agreed to strengthen people-to-people contacts through educational and cultural exchanges. This discussion was in keeping with India’s long-standing approach to the affairs of the Korean Peninsula, India’s own security concerns, and its Act East Policy.

Developments that have taken place since the setting-up of JS-DG level talks and Singh’s visit point to a fresh approach taken by India toward relations with North Korea. Incidentally, in its last three annual reports, the MEA listed the DPRK among the countries on which the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), manned by the MEA, conducted studies. In 2019-20, India reported that it was supplying food and anti-TB medicine kits to the DPRK through the WFP and World Health Organization (WHO)—aid packages that amounted to US$1 million each.

The unfinished yet imposing Ryugyong Hotel stands stark in the skyline of North Korea’s capital city of Pyongyang.

photo: Dean Karalekas

A circumstantial reading of such developments suggests that there might have been a link between the summit, whose possible occurrence was indicated in March 2018 on the one hand, and North Korea’s invitation in Baku at the NAM ministerial meet. Gotsurve’s swift approval as envoy, and Singh’s visit to Pyongyang the next day, might have been something more than a mere coincidence, given the fact that doubts had begun to emerge about the TrumpKim summit. The phraseology of the aforementioned discussion between Singh and his interlocutors indicated that the proposed summit and its uncertain status was on the agenda for the sudden, unannounced meeting. Later, Singh discussed issues of mutual interest with Ri Yong-ho on August 3, 2018 on the periphery of the ASEAN Regional Forum, held in Singapore. Indian leaders seem to believe that there should be multiple channels for direct communication with Pyongyang.

India’s Secretariat Building, also known as the Central Secretariat, is where the Cabinet Secretariat is housed.

photo: Laurie Jones

Moreover, India remains engaged with the international community on the issue of the DPRK, which has figured into Indo-US dialogue and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. It supported the inter-Korean Summit at Panmunjom in April 2018 and the historic Trump-Kim Summit in June 2018 in Singapore, followed by the inter-Korean Summit in Pyongyang in September 2018 and the second Trump-Kim Summit in February 2019 in Hanoi.

It is not implausible that the minister may have travelled to Pyongyang in the context of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, even though Swaraj would later deny any mediatory role, stating only that “due to our bilateral relations, General VK Singh visited DPRK.” The idea here is not to exaggerate the importance of Singh’s visit or allude to any formal mediatory role by India, but to underline the rare consultative space India enjoys on the Peninsula. It appears that North Korea invited India to share its perspectives and misgivings, and possibly to convey reassurances to the United States.

Long legacy

The legacy of India’s contacts with the DPRK goes back to its mediation efforts during the Korean War. Against the backdrop of Trump’s transactionalism and the strategic uncertainties that it had caused, together with a series of confrontations in IndiaChina relations since 2013, Singh’s visit might well have conveyed a message about India’s strategic autonomy and aspirations to the powers that matter in the region. Incidentally, Rabia Javed, a Pakistan-based writer, has recently termed Indian-DPRK relations an “illicit connection” and “the axis of anxiety,” exaggerating rather old data about India’s negligible trade with the DPRK and the participation of DPRK scientists in a UN space science training program that was held in India.

It will take time for evidence to surface to prove a possible connection between Singh’s visit and the summit. Presently, what is more notable is that bilateral relations have picked up over the past few years. Notwithstanding the importance of the visit, expecting a substantive refactoring of North Korea in Indian foreign policy would be premature. South Korea’s importance to India was manifest when the ambassador-designate called on the South Korean ambassador to offer reassurances about India’s policy, prior to leaving for Pyongyang.

Shoppers on their way to the Charminar Bazaar in Hyderabad, india.

photo: Dean Karalekas

India is adopting the same cautious approach in striving to regain confidence in its engagement with the DPRK that it has exhibited with Taiwan in the last two decades. Therefore, high-level contacts will still take time to bear fruit, owing to the sensitivities involved.

Even so, a reset of India’s China policy that looks imminent after the Galwan Valley clash in May 2020 is likely to substantially dilute India’s respect for China’s concerns. It should motivate India to deepen its engagement with Taiwan, Vietnam, and the DPRK more proactively.

New Delhi has a desire to preserve its historical contacts with Pyongyang to better position itself for a time when the DPRK emerges as a state responsibly engaged with the world. India’s prospective strategic interests in North Korea are manifold: economic interests in the country’s untapped mineral market; securing a friend in multilateral organizations; dissuading it from any undesirable cooperation with Pakistan; information and perspective-sharing on regional affairs; and pushing the envelope of its Act East Policy. Thus, although growth in bilateral relations depends on external factors, India has its prospective interests to pursue in the DPRK, if and when that country opens up to the world.

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