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North Korea seen shunning Asean security forum for first time

Published: 10 Jul. 2025, 16:53

North Korea's ambassador to Laos Lee Yong Son attends the 31st Asean Regional Forum at the 57th Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos on July 27, 2024. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

North Korea is expected to shun a regional security forum hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Malaysia this week, in what would mark, if confirmed, its first absence from the multilateral gathering in 25 years.

The Asean Regional Forum (ARF), joined by major powers including the United States, China, Japan and Russia, has long drawn attention as the only multilateral meeting regularly attended by Pyongyang.

North Korea joined the forum in 2000, six years after the forum's launch. Since then, it has either sent its top diplomats or ambassadors based in Southeast Asian countries to the event, but it has never skipped the forum.

The ARF has also served as a rare diplomatic venue for North Korea's top diplomats to meet face-to-face with their counterparts from South Korea, the United States and Japan.

South Korea has sought to drum up support for its efforts toward peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, while the North has used its presence to counter such efforts, often leaning on its ties with China and Russia.

As of Thursday, a day before the ARF was scheduled to take place, no announcement had been made regarding North Korea's participation.

"We believe that North Korea is not likely to participate," a diplomatic source said. "It appears to be related to Asean practices, considering the current state of relations between Malaysia and North Korea."

Malaysia, this year's host, severed diplomatic ties with North Korea in 2021 over diplomatic tensions that arose after Malaysia extradited a North Korean businessperson to the United States for money laundering charges.

Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, left, and Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joy, right, walk behind North Korea's Ambassador to Laos Ri Yong Chol, bottom center, before the Asean Regional Forum Ministerial Meeting in Vientiane, Laos on July 27, 2024. [AP/YONHAP]

Asean is known to refrain from inviting countries that lack diplomatic relations or are in a state of severed ties with any of its member states, even if they are members of the forum.

Relations between North Korea and Malaysia had already badly frayed following the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

At the 2000 ARF in Bangkok, a landmark meeting took place between then-North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun and then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Since the collapse of nuclear talks with the United States in 2019, North Korea has been represented at the ARF by an ambassador based in the Asean region.

While shunning multilateral diplomacy, North Korea appears more focused on cementing its bilateral ties with Russia, amid their close alignment since the two countries signed a key defense treaty in June last year.

On Wednesday, the North's state media said Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Pyongyang from Friday to Sunday. He is expected to hold talks with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son-hui, and pay a courtesy call on leader Kim.

Lavrov's upcoming visit comes amid speculation that Kim may soon visit Russia to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin invited Kim to Moscow during his visit to Pyongyang in June last year.

Yonhap