North Korea has publicly acknowledged the election of Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei for the first time, while maintaining its silence on his predecessor’s death during the wave of U.S. and Israeli attacks last week.

The mention of the new leader — without naming him — came during a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s condemnation of Washington and Tel Aviv for their “intervention into the internal affairs of Iran over the recent election,” the state-owned Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Wednesday.

“We express serious concern over and strongly denounce the acts of aggression by the U.S. and Israel