Wrapping up a year of 70th anniversary celebrations, North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho traveled to Mongolia this weekend following a visit to Beijing.

The visit, intended to mark seven decades of relations between Ulaanbaatar and Pyongyang, saw Ri hold discussions with his Mongolian counterpart Damdin Tsogtbaatar over DPRK-Mongolia bilateral ties as well as security issues on the Korean peninsula.

Ri’s visit to Mongolia comes two months after Ulaanbaatar issued a formal invitation to Kim Jong Un. In February of this year, too, Damdin Tsogtbaatar visited Pyongyang.

Though no longer based on a shared ideology, the Mongolia-North Korea