North Korea has remained silent on Venezuela following its January 4 Foreign Ministry statement—its initial and only response to the US raid. This unusual lack of follow-up coverage seems to point to the issue’s sensitivity for Pyongyang, a wait-and-see approach as the situation in Venezuela unfolds, or both. In the absence of further commentary on Venezuela, Pyongyang has begun tracking rising tensions over Greenland and Iran. However, North Korean media coverage has avoided details on the domestic protests in Iran, apparently reflecting the sensitivity of such unrest for North Korea.
Silence on Venezuela
As of January 15, North Korean propaganda outlets, both internally and externally oriented, have altogether stopped mentioning Venezuela since the January 4 Foreign Ministry “spokesperson’s answer” to Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that criticized the United States while remaining remarkably vague about the US raid. A departure from their regular reporting on rising tensions in Venezuela and the Caribbean in the months leading up to the US operation, this silence seems to point to the issue’s sensitivity, Pyongyang watching to see how the situation in Venezuela unfolds, or both.
Conversely, in the wake of the June 2025 US bombings of Iranian nuclear sites—not an exact parallel, given that Iran’s top leader was not captured by the United States, but similar in that both were limited military operations—North Korean media reported on international reactions to the US bombings, including those of the Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministries.[1] This occurred even though Chinese and Russian reactions at the time were relatively restrained, similar to their responses following the US Venezuela raid.
Shifting Attention to Other Pressure Points
While remaining silent on Venezuela, North Korea shifted to growing US-Europe tensions over Greenland. On January 7, it resumed reporting on Greenland—North Korea tracked this issue routinely between February and April 2025.
However, unlike in early 2025, when North Korea carried commentaries explicitly critical of the United States in connection with Greenland, its more recent criticism of Washington has remained only implicit, primarily by citing Greenlandic, Danish, and EU officials. For example, regarding US interest in acquiring Greenland, a February 2025 article in the Party daily Rodong Sinmun concluded that the United States “does not hesitate to infringe upon the interests of its henchmen [allies]” and that its “allies are nothing more than victims needed to secure its own interests.”[2] By contrast, a similar Rodong Sinmun article in January 2026 adopted a decidedly more moderate tone, even attributing commentary to unnamed “analysts”: “Analysts are saying that the situation will not change going forward, and that allies’ distrust of the United States will only grow.”[3]
This appears consistent with North Korea’s broader moderation of tone toward the United States in recent months, including following the release of a US-South Korea joint fact sheet from their October 2025 summit. While the January 4 Foreign Ministry pronouncement on Venezuela included tougher criticism of the United States than the statement following the June 2025 US bombings of Iran, it was published only for external audiences.
Pyongyang is also monitoring the possibility of US strikes on Iran as protests escalate. Media coverage—so far limited to straight news reports citing the Iranian government and officials—has avoided providing details about the situation in Iran, reflecting the issue’s sensitivity, particularly given that these reports were also carried for domestic consumption. For example, North Korean media have cited Iran’s claims of the outside forces’ attempt to “destroy social stability,” as well as US “maneuvers toward domestic interference” and involvement in “terrorist activities in Iran,” without further elaboration on the mass protests that have been ongoing since late December.[4]