N. Korea, Iran stoke arms concerns

North Korea sent its highest-level delegation to Iran in about five years as the U.S. raised concerns that arms sales from Pyongyang and Tehran have helped fuel conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In a rare public report of the trip, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that the North Korean delegation led by External Economic Relations Minister Yun Jong Ho left Pyongyang for Tehran on Tuesday. Yun had traveled to Russia earlier this month and has featured prominently in state media as a key player in trade between Pyongyang and Moscow.

While North Korea is unlikely to disclose further details about the trip, it highlights the military cooperation between the two countries and their defiance of the U.S. through the years. North Korea last sent a top member of its parliament to Iran in 2019.

“The Ukraine war has paved the way for cooperation between North Korea and Iran,” said Ban Kil Joo, a research professor at

Korea University. “North Korea is sending an economic delegation now but it will be the beginning of a wider military cooperation to follow between the two.”

The U.S. has long accused Iran and North Korea of military cooperation in the missile and nuclear fields that ran from the 1980s and into the first decade of the 2000s. It had tapered off in recent years due to sanctions as well as the development of domestic weapons production in both countries.

Washington has charged the two with sanctions violations in sending arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine.