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North Korea and Belarus Near Visa Waiver Agreement for Citizens

evening · · thread: Ukraine Reports Deployment of North Korean Missile Unit in Russia

2 sources · South Korea · 1 of them is linked to a state

Who reported this

  • Yonhap South Korea · Centre · State-affiliated · Cooperative; statutory national agency with state subsidy
  • The Korea Herald South Korea · Centre-right · Herald Corporation (Yeongpoong Group)

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

Every source for this story reports from South Korea.

North Korea and Belarus are close to signing a visa waiver agreement for ordinary citizens. According to Belarusian state media, Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui discussed the pending deal, with Ryzhenkov stating that the agreement will be signed in the very near future and that only some technical details remain to be finalized.

This development follows a March summit in Pyongyang between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, during which the two leaders signed a treaty on friendship and cooperation. Further steps to institutionalize the relationship include a resolution signed by Belarusian Prime Minister Alexander Turchin in April to open a Belarusian Embassy in Pyongyang.

Both nations have strengthened ties with Russia. North Korea signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with Russia in June 2024, which includes a mutual defense clause. Belarus has served as a close ally to Moscow, allowing Russian forces to use its territory and hosting Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

While a center leaning source presents the visa waiver as a follow up to the March summit and a sign of deepening ties, a center right leaning source frames the move as part of a broader, Russia centered network of cooperation and a three way alignment between North Korea, Russia, and Belarus amid the war in Ukraine.

How each side framed it

Centre
The report focuses on the diplomatic process and the timeline of bilateral agreements between the two nations.
Centre-right
The report frames the agreement as a strategic move to strengthen a Russia centered alignment in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Sources

100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.