Journal of Soviet Ambassador in the DPRK A.M. Puzanov for 12 February 1960

USSR EMBASSY IN THE DPRK [faded USSR SECRET Copy Nº 3

MFA stamp:

Nº 20 0421s

17 February 1960 24 February 1960]

[handwritten:

"to Cdes. [[I. I. Varnov]] and Samsonov, G. Ye.

25 February 1960 [[illegible signature]]"]

JOURNAL

of Soviet Ambassador in the DPRK A. M. Puzanov for the period

1 February through 15 February 1960

Pyongyang

[…]

12 February 1960

At the invitation of VNR Ambassador Prat Karoly [I] and a group of Embassy diplomatic officials met with a group of Hungarian comrades in connection with the 15^th anniversary of the liberation of Budapest by the Soviet Army. The evening passed in a natural comradely atmosphere.

Prat Karoly provided information about the progress of the trade talks.

He noted when doing so that the Hungarian side was extremely dissatisfied that the Korean friends are not abiding by the agreement about trade turnover concluded for 1959-1960. This agreement provided for a grown in trade turnover in 1960 compared to the previous year. However, the Korean side offered fewer goods for delivery to the VNR than were delivered in 1959. In addition, the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Trade is taking an incomprehensible position on issues of payment with deliveries of goods or another means of the indebtedness formed as a consequence of the excess of the deliveries of Hungarian goods over Korean. When our delegation proposed covering the indebtedness which had been formed with the delivery of goods this year the Korean side declined to do this. Then our delegation advised addressing an official letter to the VNR government about extending the period of repayment of the debt. The Korean comrades do not plan to do this either.

The volume of trade turnover last year was 8,300,000 rubles, including deliveries of Korean goods of only 900,000 rubles. The Hungarian side has fully met its responsibilities. According to the agreement for 1960 3,500,000 rubles' worth of Hungarian goods will be delivered and [3],500,000 of Korean goods; the excess of 1,500,000 rubles [SIC] goes to partially pay the debt formed last year.

Prat Karoly said, the behavior of the Korean friends in the matter of the VNR offering the DPRK credit for the development of a mining industry is completely incomprehensible to us. After our government delegation headed by Cde. Ferenc Munnich visited the DPRK last year at the instruction of my government I sent Cde. Kim Il Sung a letter which officially reported that Hungary can offer the DPRK a credit of 50-100 million rubles for the development of a mining industry. When passing the letter I verbally expressed a wish that the payment of the credit be done by delivery of a certain quantity of non-ferrous metals. The reply to this letter was sent to the Embassy by a second-level MFA official and said that they need the credit for the development of the coal industry, and accordingly the Korean side will not be able to pay the credit with deliveries of non-ferrous metals. During the recent visit of our trade delegation the Korean friends did not have any definite reply about the credits, promising to examine this issue, although the delegation declared that it has instructions when agreement is reached to sign an agreement with the Korean side to offer a long-term credit and the procedure for its repayment. There has not been a response. Such behavior by the friends is incomprehensible to us, especially since the issue of our offer of a credit was raised by them during the talks with the VNR government delegation.

Then Prat Karoly expressed his dissatisfaction with some actions by the DPRK MFA and other senior officials. He cited as an example the following restriction on the receipt of any information except that published in the press; the lack of information to ambassadors about the most important events in the country; in a number of cases the raising the question of aid from socialist countries by second-level officials and even when providing information about one question or another. So it was about the issue of giving material aid to Koreans in Japan. Then the Ambassador added that the Mongolian and other ambassadors are expressing the same dissatisfaction.

I replied to Prat Karoly that in our view such events are explained by the inexperience of the MFA leadership and officials. We, the ambassadors of the socialist countries need to proceed in our work from the fact that in order to further strengthen the friendship between our peoples and accordingly to direct attention to what unites us, and that the Korean friends have the same positions as our countries have on the main and important issues.

Prat Karoly completely agreed with the views [I] expressed.

[…]

USSR AMBASSADOR IN THE DPRK

[signature] (A. PUZANOV)

Five copies printed vp

1 - Cde. A. A. Gromyko

2 - Cde. Yu. V. Andropov

3 - DVO, USSR MFA

4 - Cde. I. I. Tugarinov

5 - to file

Nº 166 17 February 1960