North Korea Leader Kim Jong Un Sends New Year’s Cards to Modi, Xi and Putin

NEW DELHI: India figured in the list of 17 countries whose party and state heads received New Year greeting cards from North Korea. The North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un sent New Year’s cards to the leaders of various countries, the North’s apex state-controlled media outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported recently.

It reported that Kim Jong Un also received New Year’s card from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi amongst other state heads and party leaders. Previously too Kim Jong Un received messages and letters from various countries including India on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of demise of Chairman Kim Jong Il, who reportedly died of heart attack on December 17, 2011.

A close ally of China and Russia, North Korea had congratulated Narendra Modi in 2019 also on being elected to office for the second term. Modi had received a congratulatory message from Kim Jae Ryong, Premier of the Cabinet in North Korea. The Indian external affairs ministry had tweeted to announce it then. However, this time the ministry has yet not officially announced Modi having received New Year Card from Kim.

Unlike South Korea and other East Asian countries including China, North Korea also known as DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), celebrates two New Year’s days – on January 1 and also SEOLLAL (Lunar New Year), one of the two biggest holidays in Korea and it falls on February 10 this year.

North Korea’s founder Kim II Sung called Seollal a vestige of feudal society and thus his people could not openly celebrate the holiday until 1989, when Seollal was restored as a holiday to pass on tradition. Though the North’s government from 2003 started to host national events originally held on January 1 on Lunar New Year’s Day, many North Koreans still perform charye (ancestral rites) on Jan. 1 because of decades of following tradition based on the solar calendar.

According to KCNA, Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, sent New Year greetings and cards to party and state heads of various countries and foreign figures on the occasion of the new year Juche 113 (2024).

These countries include Russia, China, Cuba, Lao, Vietnam, Syrian Arab Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Belarus, Serbia, Algeria, Ethiopia, and India. However, the USA, and Pakistan do not figure in the list.

In a special mention the KCNA reported that the ‘respected Comrade’ Kim Jong Un sent New Year greetings to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the Russian Federation.

The list of other state and party leaders who received New Year cards from Kim as reported by KCNA included Kim Jong Un sent New Year cards to Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and president of the People’s Republic of China, and his wife, Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the Republic of Cuba, and Raul Castro Ruz, Thongloun Sisoulith, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Vo Van Thuong, president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Bashar Al-Assad, general secretary of the Baath Arab Socialist Party and president of the Syrian Arab Republic, U. Khurelsukh, president of Mongolia, Emomali Rahmon, president of the Republic of Tajikistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov, president of Turkmenistan, Vahagn Khachaturian, president of the Republic of Armenia, Ilham Aliyev, president of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Joko Widodo, president of the Republic of Indonesia, Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of the Republic of Belarus, Aleksandar Vucic, president of the Republic of Serbia, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, president of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, Sahlework Zewde, president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and Narendra Modi, prime minister of the Republic of India.

Kim also sent New Year cards to the chairwoman of the Party for Peace and Unity of Russia, the secretary general of the International Kim Il Sung Prize Council and the International Kim Jong Il Prize Council, the president of the International Group of Italy and the head of the Orchestra of the 21st Century of Russia.

The KCNA reported that the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un also received New Year’s cards from state and party leaders and personages of various circles in different countries on the occasion of the New Year Juche 113 (2024).

He received New Year cards from the Mongolian president, the president of the Syrian Arab Republic and his wife, the president of the Republic of Serbia, the president of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria and the prime minister of the Republic of India.

He also received New Year’s cards from the general chairman and the secretary general of the Central Directive Council of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the secretary general of the International Kim Il Sung Prize Council and the International Kim Jong Il Prize Council, the co-chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il Foundation and the director-general of the UNESCO.

Meanwhile, the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea received a New Year’s card from the Socialist Democrats’ Union of the DR Congo

In recent years, India has maintained steady exchanges with North Korea. In 2018, the then Minister of state in Ministry of External Affairs Gen VK Singh had visited the country and met Foreign Minister Ri Yong. This was the first high-level visit by anyone from India in the last 20 years.

During the visit, India reiterated its support to the joint peace initiative of north and south Korean leadership and lauded both sides for their efforts towards the establishment of peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula”, an MEA release said then.