Hungary–North Korea relations ( ko, 마쟈르-조선민주주의인민공화국 관계) are foreign relations between
Hungary and
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...
(DPRK), commonly known as North Korea. Relations between the two countries existed since the
Korean War, but however have evolved into conflicts.
History
The
Second Hungarian Republic
The Second Hungarian Republic ( hu, Második Magyar Köztársaság) was a parliamentary republic briefly established after the disestablishment of the Kingdom of Hungary on 1 February 1946 and was itself dissolved on 20 August 1949. It was succe ...
recognized the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on November 11, 1948, as the sole legal sovereign entity of the entire Korea.
Following the
Korean War, the DPRK sent a number of its veterans to Hungary as exchange students. When the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began, roughly 200 of these students joined in; their war experience proved to be of aid to the Hungarian students, many of whom lacked military training and could not operate the weapons and equipment they captured. In the aftermath of the revolution, Soviet forces and Hungarian police gathered up the North Korean students—easily distinguished from locals by their appearance—and deported them back to the DPRK, with a few escaping to Austria.
In 1988,
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...
's brother
Kim Pyong-il was assigned to Hungary as the DPRK's ambassador. However, little more than a year later, Hungary would become the first
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
nation to
open relations with South Korea; in response, the DPRK withdrew Kim from Hungary and sent him to Bulgaria instead.
They angrily referred to the Hungarian decision as a "betrayal", and then expelled the Hungarian envoy to Pyongyang, Miklós Lengyel.
This led to a downturn in bilateral ties which lasted over a decade-and-a-half; in a 2004 interview with ''
The Korea Herald'', then-deputy State Secretary
Gábor Szentiványi Gábor (sometimes written Gabor) may refer to:
* Gábor (given name)
* Gabor (surname)
* Gabor sisters, the three famous actresses, Eva, Magda and Zsa Zsa
* Several scientific terms named after Dennis Gabor
** Gabor atom
** Gabor filter
In ima ...
indicated that his government were interested in improving their relations with the North. However, as of 2009, the former Hungarian embassy building in Pyongyang remained empty; Budapest's relations with Pyongyang are handled through their embassy in Beijing, though according to Lengyel, who since became Hungary's ambassador to South Korea, there were plans of transferring the responsibility for that relationship to him.
In 2002, it emerged that a former North Korean diplomat in Budapest had been involved in international arms trafficking while in Hungary.
See also
*
Foreign relations of Hungary
*
Foreign relations of North Korea
References
External links
Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hungary-North Korea relations
North Korea
Bilateral relations of North Korea