TELEGRAM 066.598 from the Romanian Embassy in Pyongyang to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

TELEGRAM 066.598

To: the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (comrade Deputy Foreign Minister Constantin Oancea; comrade Director Ion Ciubotaru)

From: the Romanian Embassy in Pyongyang

Date: March 15^th, 1978

Classification: Secret

On March 14^th , on the occasion of a visit to our Embassy by Klauss Steinhofer, counselor of the GDR Embassy in Pyongyang, [the East German diplomat] informed Victor Nanu about the following:

In a recent conversation with F. Everhart, the GDR Ambassador to Pyongyang,  Heo Dam, Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, pointed out that currently several countries, especially in Africa and Asia, show tendencies of weakening support for the position of the DPRK on the issue of the reunification of the country; those countries are [also] re-orienting themselves towards establishing and developing relations both with North and with South Korea, which would sooner or later lead to the recognition of two Koreas.

At the same time, with respect to the visits made by Pak Seong-cheol and Gang Ryang-uk, as DPRK Vice-Presidents, and Zan Zun Ghi and Kong Jin-tae Deputy Prime Ministers of the Administrative Council, as special envoys of President Kim Il Sung, to various countries in Africa and Asia, the Korean official said that the aforementioned visits are aiming at explaining in more detail the position of the DPRK on the Korean question and at determining large-scale actions to support the reunification of Korea.

We would like to add that [judging] from the documents released [by the two sides] regarding the visits of the special envoys of President Kim Il Sung to countries in Africa and Asia, we couldn’t draw a conclusion about the purpose they served.

From the conversations between Romanian diplomats and other diplomats – Indian, Egyptian, Hungarian, East German, Czechoslovak, etc., it would ensue that the abovementioned visits seek to intensify relations between the DPRK and the countries in question, to strengthen economic cooperation (which is partially confirmed for those countries they visited in Asia), to determine a more  substantial support [from these countries] for the Korean question, to arrange high-level visits to and from the DPRK, to discuss certain matters regarding cooperation within the Non-Aligned Movement.

Given that South Korea publicly announced that it is planning to put the Korean question (including the simultaneous or separate admission to the UN) on the agenda of the forthcoming session of the UN General Assembly, it can be assumed that the DPRK is preparing its own point of view on the aforementioned question and in this respect, it is consulting a series of countries, asking, at the same time, for their support.

Signed

Dumitru Popa