🇷🇴🇰🇵 Did you know Romania and North-Korea used to be best friends?
You don't believe me? Take a look at this thread ↓
You don't believe me? Take a look at this thread ↓
Following their initial mutual diplomatic recognition in 1948, North Korea and the Socialist Republic of Romania had little contact with each other.
However, at one point, several communist satellite states began to distance themselves from Moscow’s suffocating grip.
However, at one point, several communist satellite states began to distance themselves from Moscow’s suffocating grip.
Bucharest and Pyongyang, found in each other a common cause to distance themselves from Moscow, especially after Nicolae Ceaușescu rose to power in Romania in 1965.
The start of the love affair happened in 1971, when Ceaușescu visited Pyongyang.
Throughout the seventies, the regimes of Kim Il Sung and Nicolae Ceaușescu not only grew closer to each other politically, but constituted something of a rift in the network of communist states.
Throughout the seventies, the regimes of Kim Il Sung and Nicolae Ceaușescu not only grew closer to each other politically, but constituted something of a rift in the network of communist states.
Kim Il Sung during a visit to Romania in 1984
Ceausescu was inspired by the personality cult of Kim Il Sung.
He admired Kim as a leader because he dominated his nation and broke free from Soviet control, combining totalitarian methods with ultra-nationalist and communist ideologies.
He admired Kim as a leader because he dominated his nation and broke free from Soviet control, combining totalitarian methods with ultra-nationalist and communist ideologies.
Emil Burghelea, a former Romania’s military attaché assigned to Pyongyang, describes how relations between North Korea and Romania were in many ways better than the DPRK’s ties with China and the USSR.
Ceaușescu began to emulate North Korea's system, influenced by Kim's Juche philosophy.
He issued the July Theses, a set of proposals that tightened government control over Romanian media, promoted nationalism, and intensified his personality cult.
He issued the July Theses, a set of proposals that tightened government control over Romanian media, promoted nationalism, and intensified his personality cult.
North Korean books on Juche were translated into Romanian and widely distributed inside the country.
In particular, North Korea’s top military brass was willing to cooperate more intimately on sensitive areas with Romanian commanders than they were with their Chinese and Soviet counterparts.
The US was only too glad to see Bucharest’s departure from Moscow.
Nevertheless, even as Romania sought to take advantage of ties with the U.S., Romania was also careful not to let its close ties to North-Korea harm its reapprochement with Washington.
Nevertheless, even as Romania sought to take advantage of ties with the U.S., Romania was also careful not to let its close ties to North-Korea harm its reapprochement with Washington.
North-Korea had hoped to use its friendly ties with Romania to get Bucharest to act as an intermediary between itself and the US.
However, following Romania’s December 1989 revolution, relations between Bucharest and Pyongyang have been relatively minimal since 1990.
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