With recent news that Kim Jong-un had sent Australia a message on its national day, is it now time for Australia to reassess its role with the DPRK?

As part of the Commission that divided Korea in the aftermath of World War Two and fought under the UN flag in 1950, Australia has played an important, if not entirely well-known, role in the history of the Korean peninsula. But whereas Australia’s economic, social and political ties with South Korea have become a mainstay in its regional strategy; bilateral relations between Australia and North Korea have not followed suit. After the initiation of diplomatic ties between the two states in July, 1974, in under a year their relationship had soured, leading Pyongyang to close its embassy in Canberra in October, 1975, and expel all staff from Australia’s Embassy in Pyongyang in the November – they had been based there for just seven months.