Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Sugiono landed in Pyongyang this October. It was the first top-level visit from Jakarta in over 12 years. The timing was no accident: it coincided with North Korea’s big party for the 80th anniversary of its Workers’ Party. High-profile guests from the region showed up, including China’s Premier Li Qiang and Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam. During the trip, Sugiono signed a fresh memorandum of understanding on regular bilateral talks.

This has started quiet talk of closer security links between two countries long kept apart by ideology and isolation. This is a calculated step in Indonesia’s military modernization drive, one that could reshape how we view the Indo-Pacific chessboard.

While Jakarta publicly emphasizes diplomacy and non-military cooperation, its rapid defense modernization and longstanding “free and active” foreign policy inevitably stir speculation about discreet security engagement with Pyongyang. Geo Dzakwan Arshali (Emerging Leaders Fellow at FACTS Asia) argues that, in this scenario, such steps would carry diplomatic risks under UN sanctions and ASEAN expectations, yet — if tightly scoped to civilian or non-dual-use areas and handled with transparency — they could still give Indonesia strategic leverage while nudging North Korea into broader regional dialogue frameworks. Some context is needed here.

One may recall that Indonesia and North Korea first forged diplomatic bonds back in 1964, a product of Jakarta’s non-aligned stance during the Cold War era.........

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