By Jon Herskovitz and Harry Suhartono<\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) \u2013 Singapore\u2019s foreign minister held talks with a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a rare visit to Pyongyang, urging the isolated state to keep channels for dialogue open with the outside world.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan met Jo Yong Won, who has been at Kim\u2019s side for years, for what the official Korean Central News Agency described in a Thursday dispatch as a conversation \u201cin a friendly atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Singaporean envoy also met his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui and invited her to attend the Asean Regional Forum, which the city-state will host this year, according to a statement from Singapore\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Balakrishnan then went to Seoul for talks on Thursday, the first official visit by a Singaporean foreign minister in nearly two decades. Travel between the Korean capitals is uncommon for diplomats and could open a channel between rivals on the divided peninsula. Singapore, however, has not publicly said whether it intends to play such a role.<\/p>\n
Singapore has maintained cordial ties with North Korea for decades, but trade between the two has been largely frozen by global sanctions imposed on Pyongyang to punish it for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.<\/p>\n
Singapore played a major role in the first summit between a sitting US president and North Korean leader when it hosted a meeting between Donald Trump and Kim in 2018. Balakrishnan even posed for a selfie with Kim when he went out to see the city state.<\/p>\n
Trump has said he\u2019s open to another meeting with Kim, but there has been no indication that one is in the works.<\/p>\n
Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, cautioned against reading too much into the Singaporean envoy\u2019s visit to Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
\u201cNorth Korea has stepped up efforts to improve ties with Southeast Asian countries since 2024, as it started to reopen its borders and reengage more with the outside world,\u201d said Lee, who has worked as an analyst for the CIA\u2019s Open Source Enterprise.<\/p>\n
She added that Kim has made it clear that he views his country as an important world player, which has been highlighted by a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months. \u201cNorth Korea wants to be an even more significant regional and global actor, and it is moving proactively to that end,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to restart formal dialogue with North Korea, which has been frozen for years by Pyongyang due to political acrimony. North Korea, meanwhile, has moved to distance itself from its neighbor, which has included revising its constitution to redefine relations \u2014 treating South Korea as a separate state and removing the framework for unification.<\/p>\n
Before visiting North Korea, Balakrishnan began his trip with a stop in China, where he met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. China has long been North Korea\u2019s biggest benefactor and is also the largest trading partner for South Korea.<\/p>\n
Balakrishnan posted on Facebook Thursday that Pyongyang \u201cis a modern, clean, well planned city,\u201d including a video montage of street scenes.<\/p>\n
The capital has \u201ccontinued to make significant progress since I last visited eight years ago,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBusy streets, more cars on the roads, and many new buildings and developments.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Updates and recasts with details, analyst quote.)<\/p>\n