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Pyongyang slams 'U.S. servant' Lee's summit with Ishiba as bid to woo Washington

Published: 25 Aug. 2025, 08:45

President Lee Jae Myung, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba shake hands after their joint press briefing on the results of their bilateral summit at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on Aug. 23. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

North Korea on Monday criticized President Lee Jae Myung's recent summit with the Japanese prime minister, calling it a diplomatic show aimed at dispelling Washington's misunderstanding.

The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued the criticism in a commentary by a North Korean individual following Lee's summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Saturday.

During the summit, which came shortly before Lee's scheduled talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, the leaders underscored the importance of strengthening both their bilateral and trilateral cooperation with the United States for peace and stability.

The KCNA referred to Lee's meeting with Ishiba before Trump, saying it “seems to ignore the tradition of pro-U.S. subservient diplomacy.” It added that this stems from “the U.S. distrust in the present ROK ruler and his worries as a servant of the U.S.,” referring to South Korea by the initialism for its official name.

“It would be right to say that the recent ROK-Japan summit was a diplomatic show caused by the uneasiness of Seoul, which aims to remove the misunderstanding of Washington,” the KCNA said.

The news agency also accused Lee of taking a “pro-Japanese attitude” to dispel the suspicion of “his master” and avoid any diplomatic disaster during his summit with Trump by underscoring Seoul-Tokyo ties, which it called “an axle” of the trilateral cooperation.

The KCNA claimed that Lee's desire to prove his “pro-Japanese creed” will “further worsen the security crisis in the region,” adding that the recent Seoul-Tokyo summit revealed his “despicable confrontational nature.”

It accused Lee of “using peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region as a bargaining chip” and of “acting as a scout for realizing the aggressive U.S.-Japan-ROK triangular military cooperation.”

North Korea “will never remain a passive onlooker to the worrying situation being created by the U.S. and its followers seeking hegemony,” the KCNA warned.

Yonhap