On February 14, at his request, I received Czechoslovak First Secretary Lehocky. Referring to instructions received from his center [the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry], he informed me that in the view of their embassy in Pyongyang, the declaration made by the DPRK on January 25 and its four-point proposal had an extremely threatening tone. For example, it describes the situation on the Korean peninsula as if it might directly lead to the outbreak of a global nuclear war. The declaration also includes a veiled reference to the fact that the DPRK is equipping itself with nuclear weapons.
The government of the DPRK launched an international campaign to gain support for its proposals. In the opinion of the Czechoslovaks, the Korean side will ask the [governments of the] socialist countries to make official statements supporting the four-point declaration.

The Czechoslovak side could hardly fulfill a request of such nature.

Comrade Lehocky inquired about the Hungarian standpoint and the steps that we had taken, or planned to take, with regard to this issue.

I said that we had not noticed any fundamentally new element in the tone and contents of the declaration. The DPRK's initiative was motivated by the intention to respond to the newest “proposal” of the South Korean regime (that the two Koreas should conclude a non-aggression pact, in tandem with which the American troops would be withdrawn) and sound out the Carter administration's plans for Korea.

I informed him that Comrade Deputy [Foreign] Minister Házi had already received the DPRK ambassador in Budapest. During their conversation, he informed him [the ambassador] that the declaration had been described in detail in the Hungarian press, with positive comments, right after its publication. He repeatedly assured him that we support their struggle for the peaceful and democratic unification of Korea. The DPRK ambassador did not ask [the Hungarian government] to make an official statement.

András Forgács