North Korea’s Ties With Belarus: Limited But Not Insignificant

Five months after North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui visited Minsk, Belarus and reaffirmed North Korea’s desire to combat the “high-handedness” of the United States, Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, made his maiden visit to Pyongyang from March 26 to March 27, 2026. Lukashenko and Kim Jong-un signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation, and the two leaders pledged to strengthen ties in agriculture, education, healthcare, and person-to-person exchanges. In just one example of the “new stage” reached in North Korea-Belarus ties, the Belarusian president ordered the opening of a Belarusian embassy in North Korea, thirty-four years after the two countries established diplomatic relations.

These optics, however, cannot obscure the reality that the meeting of the two Russian allies (the first since the two leaders met at Beijing’s Victory Day Parade on September 3, 2025) carries far less strategic significance than North Korea’s treaty-bound relationship with Russia. Senior Belarusian officials revealed how whilst current economic ties with North Korea comprise trade in meat, dairy, and agricultural products, together with Belarusian trucks operating in North Korea, they hope for Minsk to further relations by hosting North Korean students in exchange for Belarusian agriculturalists and engineers. Yet, these ties pale in comparison to North Korea’s relations with Russia and China.

Observers rightly noted how in contrast to Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2024, Lukashenko was not greeted by Kim Jong-un upon his arrival, revealing North Korea’s awareness of where Belarus sits in Pyongyang’s foreign policy priorities.  At the same time, however, it would be premature to dismiss North Korea-Belarus ties as inconsequential. Kim’s expressions of “solidarity” with Lukashenko, condemning the West’s “illegitimate pressure on Belarus”, evince how North Korea looks to continue diversifying its foreign policy partnerships with Western adversaries. These manoeuvres come amidst the North Korean leader’s hardly unexpected denunciations of the United States as a “terrorist” state, in an unnamed reference to recent U.S.-Israeli interventions in Iran. 

Although Belarus can offer comparably little to North Korea beyond access to the two countries’ mutual ally of Russia, Lukashenko presents a personal gateway to Putin. Of note, Russia now refers to North Korea as an “ally” (and vice versa), a label which the Kremlin had previously reserved for Belarus. Furthermore, the possibility for Minsk to host growing numbers of North Korean laborers, thereby offering the Kim regime another source of foreign currency, should not be ignored as one means by which the two sides can strengthen relations. Over 100,000 North Korean workers remain overseas, with Russia and China continuing to host the largest share, across factories, construction sites, and information technology sectors. This is despite UN Security Council Resolution 2397, imposed on December 22, 2017, mandating the return of North Korean workers overseas within two years. 

At the recent 9^th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Kim Jong-un  highlighted his confidence in North Korea’s improved economic performance and called for the bolstering of ties “with countries that have traditional relations of friendship” with Pyongyang. We can expect the North Korean leader to continue expanding Pyongyang’s foreign policy ties to reap economic rewards and strengthen anti-Western alignment, even if the dividends will be smaller than those from Pyongyang’s principal benefactors of Beijing and Moscow. 

North Korea’s Foreign Policy Diversification in an Interconnected World

Despite North Korea’s epithet as a hermit kingdom bound by the ideology of juche (self-reliance), Pyongyang’s desire to forge partnerships with like-minded countries is hardly new. In 1973, Kim Il-sung sent delegations to over eighty countries, aiming to develop relations with Third World states spanning Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Yet, in contrast to the Cold War, today’s international order comprises interconnected theaters between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific. Here, North Korea’s contributions of munitions, missiles, and manpower to fight a European war—namely, in Ukraine—is one example. By maintaining ties with Beijing and Moscow whilst enhancing relations with anti-Western partners, the Kim regime can aim to maximize any economic, geopolitical, and ideological benefits. 

The interconnectedness of global theaters has also been demonstrated by the current conflict in the Gulf region, which has only benefitted Pyongyang and its partners. Although few details have been revealed as to the specific discussions between Lukashenko and Kim, the ongoing war would likely have featured even if only to celebrate the U.S.’s diversion of attention from Eastern Europe and East Asia to the Middle East. For instance, Washington’s redeployment of assets away from East Asia, such as Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) systems, serve the interests of Pyongyang, Moscow, and Minsk. A weaker U.S. presence in Northeast Asia provides the breeding ground for stronger North Korea-Russia ties and allows Pyongyang to engage in brinkmanship vis-à-vis its “most hostile” neighbor of Seoul. 

Recent developments in Iran have confirmed the Kim regime’s long-held beliefs that diplomacy alone cannot guarantee security. Pyongyang and Tehran are hardly synonymous cases. Yet, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, nearly six months after the bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, demonstrated to North Korea that not only is the nuclear bomb an indispensable guarantee of regime survival, but also that the United States is capable of following through on any interventionist rhetoric. This combination has only furthered Pyongyang’s insistence that any future talks with Washington must be preceded by U.S. acceptance of North Korea’s self-declared nuclear weapons status. For the Kim regime, relations with anti-Western partners thus present sources of diplomatic support, economic benefits, and political legitimacy. 

Lukashenko the Mediator 

These developments raise the question of whether the recent upgrade in North Korea-Belarus relations could allow Lukashenko to become an intermediary in future talks between North Korea and the United States, a possibility raised by Belarusian Foreign Minister, Maxim Ryzhenkov. After the Trump administration’s easing of sanctions restrictions on Belarusian financial and fertilizer companies in exchange for the release of political prisoners, relations between Washington and Minsk have slowly improved. Nevertheless, despite suggestions of the U.S. President’s desire to invite Lukashenko to Mar-a-Lago or the White House, Belarus will struggle to replicate the mediatory role played by South Korea during U.S.-DPRK talks in the first Trump administration. 

Lukashenko’s unusual position as one of the few global leaders to have access to Moscow, Pyongyang, and Washington, however, might allow Belarus to become a potential messaging channel between the United States and North Korea. Although the door for U.S.-North Korean dialogue may be closing, Kim has not decided to bolt it completely, in what is a stark contrast to his complete refusal to engage with the North’s southern counterpart. Ultimately, however, any U.S.-DPRK talks will see Kim wish to emerge victorious by gaining the status and political benefits of summitry, including U.S. recognition—however implicit—of North Korea’s nuclear status, all the while offering no meaningful concessions and continuing to profit from economic and geopolitical ties with Russia and China. 

Time will tell as to whether Lukashenko will play any role, let alone a successful one, in reviving U.S.-North Korean diplomacy. Notwithstanding this unlikely possibility, the more important consequence of the recent elevation in Belarus-North Korea relations pertains to North Korea’s broadening of diplomatic partnerships. Ties with countries that may appear to be marginal should not be dismissed as unimportant. In Pyongyang, Lukashenko gifted Kim Jong-un a rifle “just in case enemies appear.” With North Korea benefitting from conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Pyongyang has little to lose from furthering ties with Belarus. Instead, such relations serve North Korea’s strategic interests of reinforcing anti-Western alignment and maintaining connections that could become useful in the future, whether purely for economic gain or as part of a solidifying anti-Western bloc.