North Korea has appointed a new ambassador to communist ally Cuba, months after the former one left in the wake of Cuba’s decision to establish relations with the North’s bitter rival, South Korea.
Han Su Chol has been appointed North Korea’s top envoy to Cuba, the North’s foreign ministry announced on Thursday.
Han is believed to be the deputy head of the international department of North Korea’s Workers’ Party Central Committee, as identified in state-run media since 2022.
The previous ambassador to Cuba, Ma Chol Su, left his post in March, just over a month after South Korea and Cuba established diplomatic relations, sparking speculation that the departure was a North Korean show of displeasure about closer South Korean-Cuban relations.
Seoul and Havana forged formal ties in February, delivering what was widely seen as a setback to Pyongyang, which has long boasted about its brotherly ties with the Caribbean country. South Korea did not have diplomatic ties with Cuba for 65 years.
Since February, North Korea’s state-run media outlets have given only minimal coverage of Cuba.
For instance, Cuba was not mentioned in reports by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 on celebrations at diplomatic missions and U.N. representations in 26 countries and a series of congratulatory visits by dignitaries to mark the 82nd birthday of the former leader Kim Jong Il.
It is not usual for North Korean media to omit Cuba when reporting on attendance at official functions, such as ceremonies for former leaders’ birthdays.
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South Korea’s presidential office said on Feb. 15 that establishing relations with Cuba would deal a “political and psychological blow” to North Korea, whose diplomatic dealings are largely limited to a small number of Cold War allies.
In media interviews, Ri Il Gyu, a North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in November last year after working at the North Korean embassy in Cuba, said he understood that the embassy staff in Havana were recalled after the deal between South Korea and Cuba.
Since the 1960s, North Korea has lauded its relationship with what it called the only socialist stronghold in the Americas, referring to Cubans as “socialist brethren” and to its revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, as a “comrade-in-arms” to national founder Kim Il Sung.
Edited by RFA Staff.