In the run up to an official visit to Indonesia this weekend by Kim Yong Nam, the head of the Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium, Jakarta and Pyongyang have reached a wide-ranging agreement to exchange news, pictures, videos, television shows and journalists.

According to a press release released by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, the deal was inked yesterday following the inaugural Indonesia-DPRK Joint Information Committee meeting in Yogyakarta by Secretary General Basuki Yusuf Iskander of the Indonesian Communications and Information Ministry and the head of the North Korean delegation to the meeting, Vice-Chairman of the DPRK Information Committee Jong Yong Chol.

The Joint Information Committee was formed pursuant to an MoU signed by the two countries in 2009 and a meeting between them in Pyongyang on March 25th, 2011.

P.L.E. Priatna, the director of information and media at Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, commented in the Foreign Ministry press release, "This meeting is expected to improve already tight bilateral relations between Indonesia and North Korea. The forum is expected to serve as a bridge to expand the government-to-government, government-to-people and people-to-people contacts between the two countries.”

The Foreign Ministry statement also noted that the two countries are preparing a number of other agreements to coincide with the arrival of Kim Yong Nam on the 13th, but no further details were made available.