On Tuesday, India welcomes the historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that, such a historic relation would help to be sustained in ‘lasting peace’ and persistently pursue the diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang should address the Pakistan – North Korea nuclear and missile links.
“India welcomes the United States-DPRK Summit held in Singapore. This is a positive development. India has always supported all efforts to bring about peace and stability in the Korean peninsula through dialogue and diplomacy. We hope that the outcomes of the U.S.-DPRK Summit will be implemented, thus paving the way for lasting peace and stability in the Korean peninsula,” the Ministry of External Affairs stated soon after the summit concluded in Singapore.
India and North Korea have the strong bond of long-standing diplomatic relations dating back to the Korean war of the early 1950s when New Delhi was a special fragment of the international initiative to bring in the ceasefire.
Mr. Trump on Tuesday declared that the war in the Korean peninsula would cease soon. However, former Indian ambassador to South Korea Vishnu Prakash urged caution and described North Korea as a challenge that in the 1990s had performed as a significant security risk to India by the handover of the missile technology with Pakistan.
“North Korea was a strong country in the early 1970s and South Korea was facing difficulties. But over the following years North became the source of proliferation and faced economic failure as South Korea became an economic success story and today India’s ties with South Korea is the main component of our ties with the Korean peninsula,” said Mr. Prakash explaining the scope of Indian ties with the two Koreas.
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India recently faced pressure from the U.S. to unties every bond with Pyongyang, so in 2017, high-level U.S. diplomats had urged India to do the same with North Korea, following up with the international consents. From April 2018 onwards, India complied with the international sanctions regime against Pyongyang and cut down all non-essential exports, with the exception of humanitarian and medical supplies.
The Ministry of External Affairs also referred to India’s non-proliferation concern and said, “We also hope that the resolution of the Korean peninsula issue will take into account and address our concerns about proliferation linkages extending to India’s neighbourhood.”
The international mindset to engage North Korea prior to the Trump-Kim summit, New Delhi expresses the interest to maintain regular ties with the government of Kim Jong Un.
Subsequently, Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retd.) V. K. Singh led a high-level team to Pyongyang in May. It was the first such high-level delegation from India to visit North Korea in two decades.
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