Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis will travel to North Korea this week for political talks and the formal reopening of Switzerland's diplomatic office in Pyongyang on October 30, followed by talks in Seoul.
Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis will travel to North Korea this week for political talks and for the formal reopening of Switzerland's diplomatic office in Pyongyang, his government said on Monday.
Cassis, whose visit begins on Thursday, will meet North Korean authorities during the formal office opening on October 30. Talks will include the resumption of bilateral consultations between the countries' foreign ministries, security on the Korean peninsula and geopolitical issues.
The Pyongyang office reports to the Swiss embassy in Beijing, which retains responsibility for diplomatic and consular relations with North Korea. The office has been operational since October 19 and restores Switzerland's permanent diplomatic representation in North Korea.
The Reuters account, carried by multiple outlets, attributes the visit, the October 30 opening date and the October 19 operational date to the Swiss government, and notes that Cassis will afterwards travel to Seoul for talks with South Korean officials. It also draws a contrast with the European Union, which it says has essentially frozen out direct dialogue with North Korea, while Switzerland has actively re-engaged with Pyongyang in recent years.
The reopening gives Switzerland a standing channel in Pyongyang at a time when direct Western dialogue with North Korea is limited. What the talks produce will depend on whether the resumed bilateral consultations move beyond the formal opening into substantive discussion of peninsula security, and on how Seoul reads a Swiss channel that runs in parallel with its own diplomacy.