Almost four weeks into the US-Israel war against Iran, how does North Korea view the ongoing situation?

As of March 19, North Korea has issued two official responses. The day after the attacks were launched, it released a March 1 Foreign Ministry “spokesperson’s press statement [taebyonin tamhwa; 대변인 담화],” which was disseminated through both domestic and external media. On March 10, the Foreign Ministry issued a second response—the lower-level “spokesperson’s answer [taebyonin taedap; 대변인대답]”—carried only by external outlets and thus withheld from the domestic public. Beyond these two statements, Pyongyang has largely opted for silence, making only a couple of implicit references to the ongoing situation. As is often the case with North Korean propaganda, however, such silence can be as meaningful as speech, sometimes more so.

North Korea has sharpened its anti-US rhetoric and focused on criticism of US and Israeli actions, but it did not voice explicit support for Iran. Pyongyang’s silence on the Iran war following the two Foreign Ministry responses seems to reflect both the political sensitivity of the issue and its preference to wait and see how events unfold.

Sharpened Anti-US Rhetoric Sans Criticism of Trump

The March 1 Foreign Ministry statement was harsher in its criticism of the United States than North Korea’s responses to either the June 2025 US bombings of Iranian nuclear sites or the January 2026 US raid in Venezuela. For instance, the March 1 statement said it “condemns in the strongest tone the shameless rogue act of the U.S. and Israel” and characterized Washington as playing a “destructive role destroying global peace and stability.” By contrast, both the June 2025 and January 2026 statements used the phrase “strongly denounces” to characterize US actions, a milder formulation. Furthermore, while the January 2026 statement alleged that the Venezuelan situation “caused a catastrophic consequence to fixing the structure of regional and international relations,” this fell short of the March 1 statement’s condemnation of US conduct on the world stage.

Yet, like the past two statements, it refrained from criticizing Trump by name.

This sharper anti-US rhetoric, while continuing to refrain from naming Trump, is in keeping with the North Korean summary report on the recently concluded Ninth Party Congress, where Kim Jong Un presented the Workers Party’s domestic and foreign policy vision for the next five years. In the report, the North dedicated multiple paragraphs to portraying the United States as an untrustworthy country destroying the global order, and yet it made conditional diplomatic overtures toward the United States (although the threshold for engagement has become even higher). Since Trump took office in January 2025, North Korean media have largely avoided naming Trump or his administration directly in their criticisms of Washington.

Keeping Distance From Iran

Notably, neither of North Korea’s two responses to the Iran war expressed explicit support for Iran. Any support was implicit at best, insofar as denouncing US and Israeli actions could be read as backing Tehran. This was consistent with North Korea’s handling of the June 2025 US and Israeli strikes, when it similarly avoided voicing explicit support for Iran while criticizing the two countries.

The March 10 Foreign Ministry pronouncement focused on what it described as US and Israeli interference in Iran’s domestic affairs and pursuit of regime change, themes that have historically resonated strongly with Pyongyang. Its final paragraph stated that North Korea “respect[s] the rights and choice of the Iranian people to elect their supreme leader.” However, this passage, which highlights the Iranian people’s “rights and choice,” should be read as looping back to the two issues raised earlier in the statement—sovereignty and non-interference—rather than as an expression of support for Iran itself or its new leader.

The potential for a closer North Korea-Iran relationship is not without basis. Although details remain opaque in open sources, the two countries have maintained what one scholar has termed “close but intermittent partnership” since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, particularly in the ballistic missile domain.[1] Both are close partners of Russia, and North Korea has already taken steps since 2024 to strengthen ties with Belarus, another close Russian ally. In February 2026, North Korea joined Russia, Belarus, Iran, and Myanmar in an initiative to develop “a Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century.” That said, Pyongyang’s continued public distance from Tehran suggests it is premature to conclude how far this bilateral relationship will expand or deepen. The trajectory of North Korea-Russia ties, as well as how Russia-Iran ties evolve during and after the Iran war, will also be factors.

(Largely) Silence After the Official Statements

North Korean media had regularly reported on rising tensions in the Middle East in the lead-up to the war, and had even flagged the possibility of another US strike on Iran.[2] After the two Foreign Ministry responses, however, both domestic and external outlets made no further mention of the Iranian situation—domestic media after the March 1 statement, and external media after the March 10 pronouncement. This appears to reflect both the political sensitivity of the issue and Pyongyang’s preference to wait and see how events unfold.

The pattern is consistent with how North Korean media stopped reporting on Venezuela altogether following the Foreign Ministry’s initial and only response to the US raid there. What makes the absence of follow-up reporting notable in this case, however, is that unlike the response to the Venezuela raid, which was carried only by external outlets, North Korea announced the launch of US and Israeli strikes on Iran through domestic media as well. That domestic disclosure would seem to have made follow-up reporting more likely, not less.

However, North Korea has subsequently made a couple of implicit references to the Iran war. Of note is Kim Yo Jong’s March 10 “press statement [tamhwa; 담화],” where she alleged that the annual spring US-South Korea joint military exercises had begun at “a critical time when global security structure is collapsing rapidly and wars break out in different parts of the world due to the reckless acts of the outrageous international rogues.” She further argued that the “recent global geopolitical crisis and complicated international events prove” that all military maneuvers of the enemies “should be suppressed through an extraordinarily overwhelming and preemptive super-offensive.”

Conclusion

One of the most common questions about North Korea in the context of the ongoing Iran war is what Kim Jong Un is thinking, and whether the fear of the Trump administration’s projection of power might actually draw him to the negotiating table.

The Ninth Party Congress readout offers a fairly clear answer:

It is the truth proved by the present world and the law-governed principle in the international arena dominated by the gangster-like logic of jungle law that strength respects strength and to arm oneself with such powerful force as nuclear weapons is the only means capable of putting an end to the imperialist ambition for aggression.

For those who might object that the Party Congress predated the start of the Iran war, the Party daily Rodong Sinmun’s article on Israel’s conflicts with Lebanon and in Gaza under US “protection” reinforces the same thinking. It may not be a coincidence that this article appeared on the same day as both Kim Yo Jong’s press statement and the second Foreign Ministry statement on Iran. According to the article:

The devastation of the indiscriminate war unfolding today in the Middle East is once again impressing upon the people of the world a truth of history—that military power is the safety, dignity, and standing of the state and the people.[3]