North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Pit Heltmann: Diplomacy in North Korea before the world shut down

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park opens this week’s episode by discussing the first session of the new Supreme People’s Assembly, which reappointed Kim Jong Un as North Korea’s head of state and carried out a generational reshuffle of officials. He also discusses Pyongyang’s increasingly hardline rhetoric toward South Korea and the U.S., Kim Yo […]

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of North Korea? Short answer, yes. He is. He's most formally realized. He's most formally real elected as the head of state by the Supreme People's Assembly. The Supreme People's Assembly, that's the kind of people like to call the rubber stamp Parliament of North Korea, right? Indeed. So it is basically something that consolidates Kim Jong-un's rule over the Harmit Kingdom and then also puts into power the people that will elevate him to that status. So in that, Kim, he retained his position as president of the State Affairs Commission or

and then at the same time, the longtime aide, Jo Yongwon. He was also appointed to a top parliamentary post, part of a broader promotion of loyalists and a generational shift away from the older officials we saw stepped down a couple months ago. Now, there was some speculation that Kim Jong-un might take on the title of president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which until now his grandfather Kim Il-Sung has had since his death. but he's holding on instead to the state affairs commission chairman title. I don't think he's, I don't think there's been any news suggesting that he wants to be deemed the president of the DPRK just yet.

We might see that come up in the future, but for now, nothing yet. Did his father or grandfather get a mention in this most recent re-election? Right, so it did drop some references to Kim Il-Song and Kim Jong-il. It was emphasizing Kim Jong-un-Stan. our own authority, more personalized ideological systems, so cult of personality coming into full flow. Okay. Thank you. And he's given some, Kim Jong-in has given some remarks this morning. Is that right? Right. So he gave some remarks this morning. It's mostly a continuation from what he said in the Ninth Party Congress on the last day, and especially regarding foreign policy vis-a-vis South Korea

and the United States. So basically to quote, he said, we will officially designate South Korea as the most hostile state, thoroughly reject and disregard it with the most explicit words and actions for any act by South Korea that touches our republic. So it is a very explicit statement and a mention of South Korea

that follows on, as I mentioned, from the party congress a couple of weeks ago. It's unclear as to whether they updated the terms of the rock as an enemy state or a hostile state within their constitution.

They still haven't shown any constitution. Indeed. So there was no mention of stipulating this sort of anti-Roc clause into the constitution from the Rodong or the KCNA report this morning. However, of course, they also mentioned the United States as perpetrating state terrorism and acts of aggression across the world, obviously referring to the acts on Venezuela, Trump's threats on Greenland, and also the current situation going on Iran. which Trump is trying to allay concerns about. And it's more or less kind of a continuation, as I said, of the party Congress rhetoric. Right. Okay. We wait with bated breath to see how South Korea's unificationate to Jong-dong-young might react to this statement. Good news or bad news.

Now, Kim Jong also has been in the media this week. Right. So she just came with a statement late night yesterday. And I was in response to Sana'a Takiji, the Japanese prime minister's summit, with the US President Donald Trump, where she mentioned that she has an intention to meet with Kim Jong-un. And the intention behind that is she wants to resolve the long-standing abductions issue. Which has been, well, basically the last time that a Japanese prime minister met with a leader of North Korea, it was Junitura Koizumi meeting with Kim Jong-il, and I think that was 2001 or two.

Yeah. So it was indeed something that came with results, the Kim Jong-il and the Koizumi summit in 2002. but of course regarding the long-standing issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals, which totals to 17 under the Japanese official count. North Korea believes it's all resolved, while Japan's at sort of a crossroads regarding on how they're actually going to resolve the issue. Kim Yo-jong, she said that North Korea has no reason to hold the summit with Japan, rejecting the outreach from Takaiichi.

Full on, she also said a very sort of tongue-in-cheek remark. She said, I don't want to see the prime minister coming. to Pyongyang. However, this is just my personal position. So she's saying, oh, I'm just saying this just as a pretext. Right. I'm not speaking for the government simply as a civilian. Was North Korea more, the leadership of North Korea, more welcoming of overtures of previous Japanese prime ministers? No. They either ignored it straight out, or I think this is not really a first-time position from North Korea. They've always been quite critical of the Japanese the militarization effort, especially the deployment of long-range missiles that we saw a couple

days ago. So it's not really anything new from the DPRK administration, so to speak. Okay. And shall we talk about Kim Jong-un and his daughter on a tank? Right. So we had some quite sensationalist images of Kim Jong-un and his daughter. I thought we couldn't go much more sensationalist than Kim holding a revolver or Kim seated on an armchair with a rifle up to his shoulder. But no, we've got to a little. No, he was sitting on the deck of the tank while his daughter was presumed to be driving or having instructions from a tank driver right in the cockpit seat. So he did.

This all came through Kim Jong-un and his daughter's inspection of the new main battle tank of the KPA, the Korean People's Army, and overseeing these large-scale war preparation drills, highlighting what a KCNA described at the time as advanced offensive and defensive capabilities. Right. Let's talk about the optics of that photograph for a moment, because I've talked to a couple of people. One of them at least was saying that he is now doubting his doubts about whether the daughter is being positioned to be the leader, of the future leader, you know, the success of the Kim Jong-man. When you've got her in the driver's seat of a tank with daddy sitting on the back of a tank with, you know, no hands on the steering, that's clearly sending a strong seat. And then I had somebody else said to me that he thought that it actually, it was kind of denigrating Kim Jong Un's image a little bit because he wasn't in control and elevating the daughter.

So it's a real interesting signal. What do you make of it? Well, it is something that we've seen quite frequently within the past couple months, Kim Jong-eer being quite prominent and prevalent in her appearance at military drills or military parades or even just air shows of the ADS. I think it was of the Air Force's founding, where she sat next to Kim Jong-un a pair of sunglasses. But here she's actually driving a tank. I mean, this is showing her in action. I think it's something, well, experts. Some experts have been saying that it's a reflection of Kim Ju-ez's sort of training as this

sort of military personality, as we saw with Kim Jong-un when he was young as well. So it's just Kim Jong-un just showing her the ropes, but it's not really anything concrete of whether she will be the next in line, air to the throne kind of deal. But I guess for the average North Korean and certainly for the very male-heavy military culture there in North Korea, it sends interesting signals. People might be thinking things. But it was funny because when we posted the video of Kim Jong-un with Kim Ji-Ei on the tank, on social media, you had a lot of sort of meme accounts and comments saying that,

oh, Kim Jong-un's a happy family man or whatever. But at the same time, it is the tank that was shown. It was a chumma 20 from what I gather. And it's sort of an evolution of earlier designs. It features improved armor, the propulsion networks, electronic warfare systems, active defenses against missiles and drones, possibly from the intuition of the North Korean experience in the Ukrainian warfront. So it is quite something. It's a third generation designer, so to speak.

Wow, interesting. Okay, so it's springtime, and that usually means some form of military exercises on both sides of the militarized. Certainly we've had here the big springs, what are they called here? Freedom Shield exercise. Freedom Shield exercise.

It went on for 11 days between the United States and South Korea. It involved around 18,000 troops. Now, hold it up there, because that is, it's fascinating. To be in a modern society, a modern country and a small, all densely populated country, South Korea, you've got 50-something million people here, to have 18,000 troops involved in an exercise, some out there in the field, without, you know, interrupting

or interfering with everyday life. That's quite something, it's quite a thing. Well, you know, we've been doing this for a couple of years now. It's not something new. So, and it's all been rigorously planned between the, you know, Combined Forces Command and also the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. So it's something that, you know, there were notices going out. to local residents saying that they'll hear live fire or they'll hear sort of tanks going rolling

around the neighborhood, but it's not something that holistically interrupted daily life, as you would expect. That's true. And I should confess that mine is a very soul-centric view. I mean, we have no idea in soul of what's going on. I don't know where these exercises are physically taking place, but certainly in soul, it's not like you're seeing tanks going down the main streets of soldier. No, no, yeah.

You know, soldiers on every corner, that sort of thing. Yes. And so what were the lessons learned or the outcomes of the shift through ship? Right. So the Allies said the drills incorporated lessons from recent conflicts. They didn't specify which conflicts there were. And they were also linked to preparations for the conditions-based transfer of the wartime operation control, op-con. Which is what the Lee administration have been pushing for to achieve by 2030.

There was no mention of North Korea within their sort of advertisement press release. or even the conclusion press releases, but it was just a reference or broad reference to the Korean Peninsula in saying that they'll commit to deterrence and also the stability and peace of the Korean Peninsula. I got this quote here from the article by our colleague. This is by you. You wrote this one. A quote from General Brunson, who's in charge of USFK.

No other alliance trains as we do from competition to crisis to conflict, all with an eye to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia. So he's sending the right kind of message, the right kind of tone. Right. So, I mean, you know, the reference to Northeast Asia as well, you know, that's something. It's a formation of strategic flexibility that he's always been stating from the outgo since his inauguration as the USFK commander. You know, South Korea's joint chiefs of staff chairman, he also made some remarks about

peace and stability, Korean Peninsula, achieving opcon transfer. but not really a sort of explicit mention as so to the strategic flexibility framework advertised by the USFK command. Now Kim Yo-Jong typically and predictably condemned these exercises and called them provocative and aggressive, literally a war rehearsal. Right. Well, it's been a, it's just a routine practice from North Korea, North Korean military leadership or North Korean Central leadership to criticize the U.S. South Korea military drills. They see it as a sort of threat to their own authority over military authority over the northern side of the peninsula. And also at the same time, they made quite a few demonstrations in the military format, especially with a cruise missile test above the newly commissioned Cho-Johian destroyer. And also, I believe it was the 600-millimeter MLRS system that saw a huge, I think it was. a 12 missile salvo.

Multiple launch rocket system, yeah. Right, right. And that was just a show of force from North Korea saying that we're not here to mess around. But at the same time, South Korea, they condemned it, of course, with very broad statements saying that as a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, but at the same time, it's not something for South Korea to really respond to and strong force. Well, and just a reminder to our listeners that all of these exercises on both sides of the Demilitarized zone are really invisible and unknowable by the other side until the media reports it.

Exactly. So you're not seeing anything from Seoul or hearing anything from Kangwon. Indeed. So it's just something that it is very much toned down from the South Korean side that we saw from last year's iteration of the Freedom Shield. They were very explicit mentions to North Korea, but this time around, there was very hushed. Juno Park, thank you very much for being on the podcast today. And listen to stay tuned because right after this, we have our report.

recording with former German ambassador to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. His Excellency, Mr. Pitt Heltman, and I'll be talking about his time in Pyongyang. So stay tuned for that. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'Sweitz suit. And this episode was recorded on Sunday, the 8th of February 2026 via Streamyard. And I'm joined on the Streamyard call today by former Ambassador Pitt Helptman, who is a career German diplomat who served as German. Japanese ambassador in Pyongyang from 2018 to 2020. He was the last resident envoy in Pyongyang before North Korea's self-imposed COVID closure. Pitt later served as consul general in Shanghai and retired in 2024.

Pitt, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Okay, so as I said in the introduction, you were Germany's last resident ambassador in Pyongyang before the COVID closure. For listeners who haven't been there, what did, and you know, an average day look like in your final months? And what changed week by week as North Korea shutdown because of the pandemic in January 2020, already six years ago? Yes, this is a understandable

question because it is so hard to imagine what it is that especially a Western diplomat can, after all, do in a difficult assignment like Pyongyang. Now, obviously, there are the classic diplomatic functions that you try to be an interface between the two governments as much as possible, trying to provide explanations to the North Korean side, and last but not least also to your own, in my case to the German side, how the respective other government on the other side feels and what they're aiming at. Now, this is in North Korea certainly more difficult than in any other posting that I've had before because there is only very limited interests from the North Korean side to get into any substantial exchange of information and especially of opinions.

The perfect North Korean idea of having a diplomatic encounter consists of having two delegations as big as possible with the head of delegation reading very lengthy statements of a often either anodyne or sometimes even insulting character, and then agreeing to meet again when the next opportunity arises. And obviously, as is the case in some other authoritarian governments, you will always notice that the many persons that sit on the other side will be extremely busy making notes on what their own boss says, but often they don't care very much about what the visiting diplomat says.

So, yeah, that casts a light on the depth of mutual trust within the system. But it is well known. It was like that in the olden days in China. It was like that certainly in the olden days in the Soviet Union and in a number of other countries. And the North Koreans still cling to that concept very, very dearly. Well, how then did your daily activity start to change as the North Korean government shut down its engagement with the outside world in January 2020 as a result of COVID? That is actually a very interesting point because it was not simply withdrawing and being no longer available at all. Actually, during the last months, last weeks that we were in North Korea, I found out that there was an increase.

activity, not necessarily a desire, but activity on the North Korean side. And they tried to come to terms with this unforeseen situation, and they were even experimenting. And sometimes we would receive verbal notes on how to do this and that. And a couple of days later, they revoked that verbal note and made, and made a totally, made decisions in the opposite directions. So it was absolutely fascinating to observe. of that. And another thing that happened, which never had happened until that time, was that all of a sudden I even was able to make phone calls with them, with high-ranking members of the foreign office, of the foreign ministry.

So something that had not been possible before, is that right? It was not done full stop. Okay. I assume that to a certain extent, the Russians and the Chinese were able to do that, also for linguistic reasons because they always had Korean language speakers in their embassies, but certainly not only because of that. But anybody else, pretty much, it was only formal meetings in some kind of very stiff atmosphere within the foreign ministry. But in the last couple of months, things changed and everything accelerated. I should also mention that pretty

much in parallel to what we experienced because of the COVID crisis, we had. We had, had a minor but tangible intensification on the level of our bilateral relationship. One reason for me to think that was that all of a sudden, the German embassy was allowed to visit the Kim Jong-un University and the foreign language university on a regular basis to teach. So that's what I did. Teach what, German? German, yes. there was a keen interest in improving the capabilities of future German language teachers.

Oh, okay. Now, this was, I would not go so far to say that there was a huge new approach towards Germany as a new partner in the West or something like that. No, that would be going way too far, but there was an attempt of strengthening that kind of kind of, kind of trajectory that they had. So that was one element. And the other one was that we were, when the whole COVID thing all of a sudden really surfaced, this was the end of January, you will remember. We were already in a very, very good dialogue with them to send a delegation to the

Munich Security Conference, which would have been absolutely interesting for, as you can't imagine. And it was not on a very high-ranking level. That was clear. but it would be a governmental delegation nevertheless. And I was absolutely thrilled by the idea to have that. And so we talked about these things on the telephone. How much longer, after the closure in late January 2020,

how much longer did you stay in Pyongyang? And when did you realize that it was no longer possible to stay there any longer? Well, I can give you the date. We stayed until 9th of March of 2020, which was the last day that a commercial flight left North Korea. It was not even a commercial flight in the full traditional sense. It was a one-off flight. All other flights had been canceled beforehand,

and the original intention of the leadership had already been to have the country closed off no matter what. But then they got really under fire from many, many governments worldwide, that this is not the way that the diplomats who were still in Jung Young at that time could be dealt with. So they decided they would allow one last flight, and every diplomat who wanted to leave could leave, but that would be it. Right. And that is why my own government decided to have the Germany, German embassy close down and remove all the staff and bring them back to Germany.

That decision was made in Berlin, was it? It was made in Berlin. I can say six years after that I was not the happiest adult decision. Yeah, because some embassies decided to tough it out and they stayed open and even with a smaller staff all during the pandemic. Others like the German embassy, they evacuated and they closed up.

How do you look back upon that decision? And what would have to be different to have kept the German embassy open with even one or just two people through the pandemic? Yeah. Well, all European embassies left, but it took them quite a long time. I forgot whether it was the Romanians or the Bulgarians who were the last to leave. But they stayed, I think, for another full year. And then even they, and they were the hardiest, left.

The Swedish and the Brits left in summer and the small French operation that they have, you know, it's only a cooperation bureau with one rank and file member of the French Foreign Service. He left together with us on Moyzny. So it was an exodus that that's for sure. And I've never really counted. And also because I didn't have all the information, but I don't think that there were more than a handful of embassies still operating after summer 2021. Now, talking about the post-COVID era, after Berlin did a technical survey of the shuttered embassy compound in February 24, already two years ago now, why do you think the embassy has not reopened? Is the blocking factor mainly technical, political, or a mixture of both? I think your last option is the correct one. It would be a fairly big effort to get the embassy up and running. And that would be under completely changed political environment.

We have the war in Ukraine. We have the North Korean involvement in the Ukraine, both of which are unfortunate and consume huge capacities on the Germans. So as far as you understand, then, is the delay more on the Berlin side on reopening the embassy rather than the Pyongyang side? It is both, I would say. The Berlin side is not fully convinced of going back into North Korea under the present conditions and given the extremely complicated situation with running a fairly big compound,

used to be one of the biggest compounds that Germany has abroad, and a very difficult stashing situation. It's not easy to find volunteers to go to Pyongyang, particularly because traveling until this day is very, very insecure. You never know whether there will be flights and by which company. And so it's the totality of the technical challenges in combination with a political environment that has deteriorated considerably. So, Pitt, if you were in charge of the career desk in Berlin today,

would there be some preconditions that you would like to set for a safe restart or reopen of the German embassy? Well, number one would be free travel, so that you would have the guarantee that whenever a accredited diplomat wanted to travel to Pyongyang or out of Pyongyang, that would be guaranteed

and that the North Korean side would take the necessary measures, whatever they be in detail, be it that it's a land transfer to Dandong or be it, by plane, which obviously would be preferable. That would be number one. And the number two would be even more banal in a sense,

but expensive, and that would be the full cooperation of the Gengen service providers, that electricity and water and heating and all these things can be provided on a reliable basis. A quick question about the compound, because as you mentioned, it's one of the biggest German embassy compounds anyway, and that's, of course,

because it was inherited from the former East German or the German Democratic Republic embassy building way back in 1990. And my question is, are there still tangible or intangible carryovers from East German times, for example, protocol habits in Pyongyang or contacts or expectations from the North Korean side, or simply how Pyongyang understands German diplomats? I can simply answer no. This is a lesson that the North Koreans have learned. One of the important factors there probably was that we did not have formal diplomatic relations for about 10 years after German reunification.

We severed, so to speak, the diplomatic relationship that the GDR had. And we basically kept the embassy building running and we had diplomats working there, but it was a, what's the term in English? How do you call those? Gustav. And, you know, it was even more than that. It was, there's a... The main office? It was, yeah, it's not the term that we would use.

It was rather a protected office. But that's my off-the-cuff translation. I would have, it simply slipped my memory. It's a technical term. It's when you send your staff into the embassy of a befriended nation. So we were formally part of the Swedish embassy. Interesting. And that was for 10 years.

Well, this happens. It happens also when you simply have to leave a country, be it for a natural catastrophe, or be it for sometimes even for fiscal reasons. That's then obviously it's a less expensive way of doing things. But it downgrades your presence in the host country. it's not considered to be very desirable. But that's what we did for 10 years. And obviously, this reduced the scope of interaction with the North Korean government. They were not amused

by that. But then we reopened. We reestablished the diplomatic relations in 2000. And ever since we had a embassy with full diplomatic relations in their own right. And that was from the beginning based on federal republic of Germany traditions. And the North Koreans were very much used to it, also because they have their fairly big operation in Berlin. Ah, yes. They have their own diplomats who got to know how diplomacy under unified Germany conditions works.

Right, the new way of doing things yet. Now, Germany and the European Union partners have long tried critical engagement with North Korea, but your predecessor, Ambassador Thomas Schaefer, when I interviewed him, he judged that many projects had limited impact because of access and transparency constraints. What did you see on the ground? Were the niches where a corporation still worked or had the space really closed? I wouldn't say it had totally closed, but it is, in fact, I totally agree with Thomas Schaefer here.

It is extremely difficult to run whatever project in. in North Korea and make people take note of it because the leadership, the North Korean government goes out of their way to prevent exactly that. That is the experience. So it is an extremely difficult uphill battle. It should also be mentioned that on top of that we have the sanctions, which would certainly limit

our scope of activities on top. So what we did, we kept, for example, a German language lecturer for quite some time, but this person also was called back. But when, it was long before I arrived. We did a couple of cultural projects. I remember one fairly important temple in the vicinity of Kaysson, which was basically rebuilt with funds from Germany.

Those were things that still could be done, and theoretically could have been done during my time as well, but, well, it didn't materialize. There's still any humanitarian projects undergoing while you were there? We had them, and you will be aware that there are a number of international NGOs who used to work in Pyongyang, and a couple of them came from Germany. And so this is how we did it, but they also left in 2020. One of them left together with us, and actually I tried to muster all my,

authority as the resident ambassador to make people leave. And I was, I was basically successful except one gentleman who had the request from his head office to stay on as long as possible, and so he did. And I said, I wished him luck. That was all I could do. But he also left a few months later. It was simply no way of doing anything. Diplomats in Pyongyang are sometimes asked not to push sensitive topics. You mentioned already earlier that the biose bilateral meetings were often involved reading from long statements. How did you keep talks productive without endangering dialogue partners or losing honesty and frankness? Were there any rules of thumb that you used to try to break through or to push a point? Yes. Yeah. There are still a limited number

of things that you can do. The most important one, maybe not the problem, most important, but definitely a very important one were not so much the meetings themselves. They save their own purpose, but when you live, normally your host would, in a very cordial manner, lead you out of the foreign ministry building through the long hallways that they have. And that was the only opportunity where you could speak without an interpreter. Because normally those diplomats would speak, you would find a common language. In my case, it was mostly French. And there we could have a little chit chat on, also on more difficult issues. It was definitely not the suggestion that I would ask my foreign minister to come with these things that would be out of my of my remedy.

But there were things that didn't go too well between the two of us and I could place some signals. And I remained master of the language. That is important. So that's one. And I would not underestimate these things. Normally they are banal, but in a very, very restricted atmosphere, as was the case in Pian. young, they played a role. And it happened that we would stop walking and have a very, very friendly conversation.

That was one thing. Another one is obviously there are invitation, social invitations. They would not come very often. And when they came, they made it clear that even social invitations were a very formal thing for them. But still, on these occasions, their groups were smaller. And it was a more relaxed atmosphere. So I had them over for dinner at least once or twice in my residence.

I also invited them to the various bigger events that we had. So, for example, obviously the German National Day, the Day of German Unity, and they would always send someone, but this is diplomatic practice all over the world. So it's nothing, it's no diplomatic rocket science. It's a normal thing. But still they would show up and they would. they would even expect me to provide a captain's table for them so that we could sit down together and have a chitcher. So that was also an opportunity. And then they, on their own,

they also had events, which were much different and much more formal and much on a much bigger scale normally. But when you were lucky, you would sit together with one of your Korean counterparts It's on whatever level it is, you wouldn't really care about that. And provided you had a common language, you also could have an exchange of sometimes only everyday experience and sometimes more touchy issues. I did that once with the former foreign minister when they had their routine reception for the New Year out in the guest house. And what was the name?

Was it Riyong-ho or Rishu-Yong? Rihon Ho. He was, I mean, he was a gentleman, no doubt, and his English was considerably better than the English of his interpreter. Yeah, and you could really have a conversation with him. Just before I asked you about German Day of National Unity or related topics, I want to ask you, did you ever have an occasion to visit any North Korean residence or house? Actually, no, but fortunately my wife did.

She was on a charity program, and they visited a family in the countryside, actually. And she even brought photographs. It was extremely interesting. And since this was not official, the lady of the house, she must have been prepared, but still it was, well, it was for my wife, it was. an exceptional opportunity to look a little bit deeper into North Korean realities. I could imagine. Was there any one or two things she took away from that? Some memory, for example, perhaps seeing the portraits of Kim, father and son in the living room or something

like that, something that left an impression on her? Well, actually, she saw those, but she didn't pay much attention because that's what they all have to have. And the lady of the house didn't didn't mention it and nobody honestly had any interest in it. That was obvious. And since I'm not giving here any place names or personal names, nobody will know who it was. And it was

not a clandestine kind of thing. There were obviously officials with them, but it was a nice conversation on the everyday life under the very, very simple conditions in a rural town.

And it was It was more the, well, the lifestyle that this couple, it was a couple without children, had a young couple. And the technical conditions under which they lived and these things, that really remained in the memory of my wife. Right. Now, in South Korea, Germans, German diplomats are often asked to offer some lessons from German reunification. But North Koreans understandably become defensive. that the idea of absorption, because it usually implies the South absorbing the North

after some kind of regime collapse scenario. What messaging, if any, have you found opens doors in North Korea rather than closes them when this topic arises? It didn't. It didn't. Or the topic never arose. No, no. I never raised it with my interlocutors.

I was convinced this would be far too touchy, and I always was prepared. to go into all kinds of aspects, Ip asked. But I never pursued the issue in any aggressive manner, in any forthcoming manner. I mentioned, I would use the words of Korean unification, which as I knew at that time, was still part of the syllabus, so to speak. But obviously, this was a bait that I used,

but my intellectualist never took it. They never took the bait. Interesting. Now, since as you hinted at, since the end of 2023, North Korea have been consistently sending the message that it is no longer interested in peaceful unification or even dialogue with South Korea. The names of the Tongil market and Tongil Station have been changed and the arc of unification has been demolished.

How do you see these developments? Well, it is extremely saddening. It is one of the few. lines of communication or lines of thinking that linked North Korea to the world outside of their own country and maybe outside of the little influence that comes from China and from Russia. And by now it is forbidden to think about it and to speak about it. And if I remember the few casual meetings or conversations that I've had with North Koreans, it would always be part of their concerns.

And yeah, I remember one conversation with an official, not from the foreign ministry. And he had, he was even, it was obvious that he was under, under instruction to raise the issue towards all foreign interlocutors. And to make a very clear and strong point that any reunification of the Korean Peninsula. would be possible only under North Korean conditions, close to being belligerent, but never crossing the threshold.

And I made it a very strong point that with the background that we have in Germany, it would be extremely important for the Korean people as a whole to decide over the question of reunification and that my hopes were that they would find a way to do that this time in peace. Yeah. Without casualties. I noticed that in that moment that he was beginning to cry. Oh, boy. Yeah.

But he kept his composer and we finished the conversation on a very, very friendly note. That was that. Looking back at the steps that led to German unification, Europe had. kind of a multilateral scaffolding. Of course, there was the West German policy of Ostpolitik. There was also the Commission on Security and Corporation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission. All that compares to...

Conference, if you allow. Thank you, pardon. Conference. Wrong word. That compares quite starkly to the very thin architecture that exists on the Korean Peninsula. If you were designing just one practical confidence-building step for Korea, what would you start with and why?

Well, my first step would be a fairly lame one, and that would be don't try to refer to the CSCE structures that we had in Europe. It is the historic development in East Asia, including the historic developments before the advent of the colonial powers, is so utterly different from what we experienced in Europe that it would be a event. very, very artificial exercise to try and say, okay, let's take the CSCE structures and that to the East Asian conditions. I would rather say try to find a mode that is built from the scratch and the Northeast Asian conditions.

and don't try to look so much to the individual steps that were taken in Europe, but maybe take a look at what the end result was. Try and define your own common goals that you had. Regionally or between North and South Korea, regionally, regionally, which obviously would involve the USA as well. I don't think this could be done without them because of their presence in South Korea and Japan. and very, very likely that South Koreans and the Japanese would insist on having the USA there as well. But this is, well, this would be accepting the powers that be.

And then try to define a common goal, which as you will know in the case of CSCE was a fairly broadly in the very substantial one. And the goal of the Warsaw Pact nations basically was to have security within their borders. and that nobody questions the post-war borders. And for NATO or for the Western countries, it was to have access both to the markets and to the people of the Eastern European nations. And the latter turned out to be not controllable for the various Eastern European systems,

including the USSR. Yeah. So this, it would be a totally different question. What are the goals that the main actors, the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan, and the U.S., that they could agree upon. But I would really, I wouldn't feel well if they would use any of the elements from the CSE and put them on their paper and then let's try to do something. No, take a white sheet of paper and start from the scratch. Okay, now let's talk about how Berlin should posture today. North Korea, as we know, is supplying Russia with munitions, manpower,

other support for the war in Ukraine. If you're advising Berlin, what practical steps should Germany prioritize now vis-à-vis North Korea? Well, you basically had the answer in your question. This is, from our view, obviously, probably the most unfortunate turn that the DPRK foreign policy could take. and it would come on top of our other grievances that we have. And we could not find a way around it. For diplomatic expediency, let's not talk about the war, that kind of thing.

Now, we would have to raise it, which makes it even more difficult to produce constructive results. But, well, this was the North Korean decision, and we would definitely try to keep contact going, which is always our primordial goal, not to sit together in one rule and keep silent. Some people would argue that it's better to separate consular presence from geopolitical behavior. Do you think that Germany should wait for reopening its embassy until Pyongyang removes itself from the war,

or the war stops in some way? I mean, that is one of the considerations that always plays into the thinking. of our foreign policy decision makers. It's obvious. In many other nations, the idea that you mentioned that we could run a very modest operation only for consular purposes would be a worthwhile consideration. In North Korea, we have basically no real consular interests. There might be a few North Koreans who have had family relations in Germany. That's true. And for those, we could provide services to the extent that the North Korean leadership allows that.

But for all I know, there are no German nationals present in North Korea at the moment. And those are obviously the ones that we care of first and foremost. There was a handful during my time. And we could have had a reunion of the German community in North Korea in my, in my ambassador's office. There was enough space for that. So it would also be hard to argue to have that kind of thing.

It would be a very artificial thing. And since in fact, it was after 1990, it was basically other nations who became, so to speak, guest diplomats working in our embassy rather than the other way around. That I don't see

much perspective for us to do the same thing again. We were, as a matter of fact, as I mentioned in the beginning, we were part of the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, and the Swedish embassy rented their installations from the German government. Ah, right. So the building was yours, but the embassy was Swedish and the German diplomat were in there. Yeah, yeah. It was fairly unusual, yes.

My last question for you, if you could advise the next German ambassador to the next resident German ambassador to Pyongyang before they get on the plane, what concrete practices would you insist that they adopt on day one and what illusions should they leave at home? Well, the first and foremost is to try as much as ever possible to get into contact with whatever. government agency there is. I made that experience not too often, but I've had contacts outside of the foreign ministry as well, obviously always with their knowledge. There was no other way of doing that. But it could be done on certain occasions, I would say it might have been a dozen of times that I've had that opportunity during my 20 months in North Korea. And that is something that I would definitely vigorously try and continue. Various agencies?

Yes. Including maybe the Korean Workers Party, for example. Absolutely so. I know the Workers Party also has a Foreign Affairs Department. No, absolutely so. But that is actually, that is even well-established tradition. This always was done. And I did that too.

And it was considered to be a matter of course. But it was not more productive than the meetings than the foreign ministry. Okay. No, but you could go to the parliament. That was, I did that a couple of times. You could go to, for example, to the Red Cross, that tool. I tried to meet, to meet the mayor of Pyongyang, which didn't materialize. But they can see, you simply keep trying.

And that is, to my mind, the most important thing that you can start to do. And even if you are totally unsuccessful, that by itself is a result on which obviously you would report on to your government back in Germany, and you would need to draw conclusions from that. And is there anything that you would advise the next ambassador any illusion to leave at home? Well, I would rather try to formulate very modest goals that in the best of worlds might be achievable

and not so much dwelling on what is not achievable. The list of things that are very likely not to be achieved. for the next German ambassador in Puyang is so long and so depressing. I wouldn't, this would not be the right kind of motivation. But it is possible to build relationships with people on the ground, both officially and half, half officially. It is an extreme uphill battle. It takes a lot of effort.

And you keep making, you keep failing at this, at this. enterprise, but you need to motivate yourself to keep going. And at the end of the day, it makes sense, it produces results. As I mentioned, we had something of a more productive sphere during the last six months of my six to nine months of my time there. In generally, even if you leave out the vicissitudes of the actual political and strategic strategic situation, North Korea is a hermetic place. So you need definitely more time than in many other country to establish even normal working relationships.

So you need, as we say in German, a long breath. But I still would say it is definitely worth the attempt. And it would be left to the new colleague who goes there to find out how things do work now under a fairly different geostrategic environment, what is possible now and what isn't? Great answer. Thank you very much, Ambassador Pitt Heltman for joining us today on the NK News podcast. We appreciate your time. Thank you for having me and good luck. In the intricate world of Korean affairs, tailored intelligence makes all the difference. Career Risk Groups Consulting Services offer specialized, actionable

intelligence designed to guide your career-related decisions. We provide bespoke consulting services that cater to your unique challenges and goals. From policy analysis to market entry strategies, we bring clarity to complexity. Transform uncertainty into opportunity and visit careerpro.com solutions today. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. our thanks go to Brian Betts and David Choi for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer Alana Hill, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you for listening and listen again next time.