North Korea respects Iran's choice of a new supreme leader, state media said on Wednesday (March 11, 2026), accusing the U.S. and Israel of undermining regional peace.
Pyongyang, a longstanding U.S. adversary, has previously condemned the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran as an "illegal act of aggression".
Defying U.S. President Donald Trump's desire to have a say in who runs Iran, the Islamic republic on Sunday (March 8, 2026) named Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his father, longtime ruler Ali Khamenei, who died in an Israeli airstrike on February 28, 2026.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | The last ‘revolutionary’ of Iran
"We respect the rights and choice of the Iranian people to elect their supreme leader," Pyongyang's unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
