Did North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently say that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and that the state of Israel does not exist? No, that's not true: Kim Jong Un didn't make any recent statement addressing the issue of Jerusalem or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The claim appeared as a post (archived here) published on Tiktok on April 30, 2023, with the hashtags "#Korea's leader; #Israel; #Palestine."
The video contains a picture of Kim Jong Un with text that says:
Breaking: Korea's leader says there is no state of Israel, and Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, and Israel is an entity made by the United States.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed May 3 14:33:39 2023 UTC)
The video does not show Kim Jong Un speaking, it is merely a picture of the North Korean leader on a podium, with the claim written on the image in Arabic. The term "Breaking", with which the text starts, induces to believe that this is a recent statement by Kim Jong Un.
No such statement on Jerusalem by North Korea's leader has been recently reported by reputable media outlets. Lead Stories conducted a search on May 5, 2023, on Google, Bing, and Yahoo for a statement or media reports that could corroborate the claim, but has not found any.
North Korea recognizes Palestine as a sovereign country and does not have diplomatic ties with Israel. On December 9, 2017, following the Trump administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, North Korea condemned the decision through its Foreign Ministry spokesperson, calling it a reckless act:
"The United States should bear full responsibility for all the consequences of tension and instability that will be entailed in the Middle East region owing to its reckless and high-handed act."
The spokesperson continued, "We, out of our external ideas of independence, peace and friendship, condemn strongly the United States' action this time and express our firm support and solidarity with the Palestinians and other Arabian people in their just cause to regain their legitimate rights."
