SEOUL, Nov 3, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - North Korea said Friday that a recent spate of
embassy closures was simply "regular affairs" to improve its external
relations, after Seoul claimed it was a sign of Pyongyang's dire economic
straits.

In the last week, Pyongyang has shuttered embassies in African allies Angola
and Uganda, and also closed its diplomatic missions in Hong Kong and Spain,
according to state media and local authorities.

Seoul said this week the closures offered a "glimpse of North Korea's dire
economic situation, where it is difficult to maintain even minimal diplomatic
relations with traditional allies".

But an unnamed spokesperson of Pyongyang's foreign ministry said the changes
were "part of the regular affairs... to promote their national interests in
external relations," in comments posted on the ministry's website on Friday.

"In line with the changes in the international environment and the state
external policy, we are either closing or newly opening diplomatic missions
in other countries," said the official, without specifying which embassies
were being opened or closed down.

"We have also introduced such measures on several occasions in the past," the
official added.

North Korea has diplomatic ties with more than 150 countries, according to
Seoul's Unification Ministry, but the number of missions it maintains
overseas has been shrinking since the 1990s due to financial constraints.

Experts say the last time the nuclear-armed country dropped diplomatic
missions on this scale was in the mid-to-late 1990s when the country was hit
by a famine in which hundreds of thousands of people died -- estimates range
into the millions.