FACT CHECK: No reports of Kim Jong Un saying North Korea will join Middle East conflict

Claim: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said in a statement that his country will join the Middle East conflict if North Koreans are harmed amid the attacks by the US and Israel against Iran.

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: Amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East, a Facebook page named “CSS PMS Current Affairs & General Knowledge” released a post on March 4 purporting to carry Kim’s statement on the Israel-US attacks on Iran.

The post shows a photo of Kim and his alleged quote: “My citizens are present in Iran. There will be no compromise on their return. If even one of them is harmed, I will join the war without any hesitation.”

The post has reached 139,000 reactions, 10,800 comments, and 8,300 shares, as of writing.

Similar posts are also circulating online. On X (formerly Twitter), verified user China Live cited Kim as saying that he has offered Iran missiles to use against Israel. 

The facts: No reliable sources confirm that the North Korean leader made these alleged statements. No major news outlet, government source, or reports from North Korean state media have attributed these statements to Kim.

On March 1, North Korea commented on the Middle East conflict through a press statement issued by a foreign ministry spokesperson and released through the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The spokesperson called Israel’s attacks on Iran and the US military operation “an illegal act of aggression and the most despicable form of violation of sovereignty in their nature from A to Z.”

“The DPRK condemns in the strongest tone the shameless rogue act of the U.S. and Israel which put their domestic law before the recognized international law and do not hesitate to abuse military muscle in order to realize their selfish and hegemonic ambition,” the statement read.

There was no mention of a supposed offer by Kim to supply Iran with missiles, nor was there mention of North Korea potentially joining the Middle East conflict.

On March 11, the state-run KCNA also reported that North Korea “respects” Iran’s appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s supreme leader.

Tensions in the Middle East: On February 28, the US and Israel launched strikes on Iranian targets, with US President Donald Trump saying the strikes were aimed at ending a decades-long threat from Iran to ensure it could not develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran has called the strikes illegal and responded with missiles fired at Israel and several Gulf states that host US bases.

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes, with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeding him. – Marc Nathaniel Servo/Rappler.com

Marc Nathaniel Servo is a Rappler intern. He is a fourth-year journalism student from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the former Associate Editor of PUP College of Communication’s The Communicator.

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