Zardari and the Foreign Office greet Kim Jong Un on North Korea's founding day

President Asif Ali Zardari sent greetings to Kim Jong Un on the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the Foreign Office posted a public message on the same day, an unusual pair of signals after two decades of quiet between Islamabad and Pyongyang.

Zardari's letter, reported by Dawn on Thursday from Wednesday's dispatch, spoke of "cordial relations based on mutual trust and goodwill" and said he hoped ties would grow in the interest of both countries. He also sent a separate note to Tajikistan's Emomali Rahmon on that country's independence day. The Korea letter is the one that stood out.

The Foreign Office account on X posted a flag graphic and "warmest felicitations" to the government and people of the DPRK. It tagged @PakinDPRKorea, the handle of Pakistan's mission in Pyongyang. The mission's own website still lists the post as closed. The tag therefore pointed at an office that, on paper, is not staffed.

Spokesman Sajjad Haider Khan told Dawn that exchange of felicitation messages is "a common practice" and played down any special reading. Protocol supports that claim in one direction: presidents often send anniversary notes. It does not explain why the Foreign Office chose to publish this one, or why it tagged a closed mission, after years in which such notes, if they were sent, stayed off the public feed.

Pakistan and North Korea opened consular relations in 1968 and raised them to ambassadorial level in 1972. The relationship thinned after the early 2000s, when investigations into the A.Q. Khan network and successive rounds of United Nations sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes made visible contact costly. Islamabad kept a legal channel. It did not keep a public one.

The timing is the part that invites a longer look. The IAEA said this week that North Korea has built a second enrichment hall at Yongbyon and that a Kangson annex appears to have started work. Inspectors have been absent from the North since 2009. The same IAEA board referred Iran to the Security Council. Pakistan is not on that board vote. It is a state with its own nuclear weapons, a close tie to China, and a working channel to Washington. A public greeting to Kim on founding day is a small diplomatic object. It is also a choice made in a week when nuclear files in Vienna are moving.

Islamabad's other Korea relationship is with Seoul, which is a larger economic partner. Nothing in Zardari's letter or the Foreign Office post mentioned South Korea, sanctions, missiles or Yongbyon. The text is the standard warmth of an anniversary cable. The fact of publication is the news.

Whether the note is followed by a reopened mission, a trade talk or another silent year is the test. For now the record shows two things that can be checked: a presidential letter to Kim dated for the 78th founding anniversary, and a Foreign Office post that tagged an embassy the ministry itself still describes as closed.