When I was a diplomat in Pyongyang, although we kept the decision to close our embassy a strict secret, the North Koreans found out about it after a few days, so they made a reciprocal decision to close their embassy in Belgrade.
North Korean officials regretfully informed us that they were forced to close the embassy in Belgrade for the same “economic reasons.” They also informed us about the closing date of their embassy, two weeks before we scheduled the closing of our embassy. It turned out that they had figured it out before us, thus saving their face and teaching us a diplomatic lesson, with the fact that it did not affect our Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the least.
After that, the building of our embassy was leased by Mongolia. A few months after they moved in and started working there, another bizarre story happened, which Pyongyang has never been short of. The Mongolian Embassy has submitted a note to the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for urgent permission to move to new premises, due to the presence of supernatural phenomena and ghosts in the building of the former Yugoslav Embassy.
My friends testified to me that the story about the Mongolian diplomatic reaction to the appearance of ghosts is completely true, since they themselves had the opportunity to read the text of the said Mongolian note with their own eyes. It could be said that the Mongolian ghosts put an end to the story of the Yugoslav embassy in Pyongyang, but its epilogue, however, must be attributed to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since it first decided to close the embassy in Pyongyang for “economic reasons”, it soon made the decision to open the embassy in Seoul. The North Koreans did not react to it anymore. And how would you? They kept quiet, but continued to consider us friends.