A diplomatic paper has revealed that the former Soviet Union considered establishing diplomatic relations with South Korea in the early 1960s in order to monitor cozy relations between North Korea and China.

The Soviet Union's First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev declared a peaceful coexistence with capitalism in 1956. North Korea and China then blasted the USSR as a revisionist after which the North and China developed close ties.

The diplomatic paper was sent from an ambassador of the Czech Republic in Pyongyang to his government during this time. The ambassador said that the then Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang had asked him about this matter in 1963.

But when Khrushchev was removed from power the following year, North Korea and the USSR restored their previous favorable relationship. It took the next 27 years before the Soviet Union and South Korea established diplomatic ties.