Russia and North Korea Embrace 2015 as ‘Year of Friendship’

OK, this is more like it: welcome back to 1981, the epoch of east-block tyrannies is back, as North Korea has just declared 2015 as Friendship Year with Russia, boosting relations between Pyongyang and Moscow, IBTimes reported.

State-run (is there any other way?) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has published an official announcement saying the declaration will strengthen political and economic ties between the two countries.

“During the year of friendship the two countries are to invigorate exchanges of delegations and contacts between national institutions and regions and hold joint cultural events in Pyongyang and Moscow and other cities of the two countries, ” the KCNA report said.

KCNA said in 2015 North Korea and Russia are going to “boost exchanges of delegations and contacts between different organizations, including regional ones.” In fact, a number of high-profile Korean delegates have already visited Russia in the past weeks to cement the relationship.

Over the past few months, Pyongyang and Moscow have been planning a combined military drill some time in the future.

Ah, the good old days…

North Korea, which, like Russia, has been the subject of severe, Western economic sanctions—in the Koreans’ case because they took money not to make a nuclear bomb, and then, guess what, they did. So it and Russia, which lost friends and markets for its occupation of parts of the Ukraine, want to be friends again.

It’s like going back to your ex-wife’s house because it’s four in the morning and no one else would give you a second look…

KCNA referred to “numerous joint ventures” with the Russians in 2015, and supreme leader Kim Jong-un might grace the celebrations in Moscow of the 70th anniversary of World War II in May.

It would be his first-ever foreign trip. Is that sad, or what?