Czechoslovakia established diplomatic relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on October 21, 1948, and the first members of the representative office arrived in war-torn Korea in 1950. During their initial months in Pyongyang, they spent most of their time in shelters; they were subsequently relocated to the border with the PRC, from where they moved according to the front line’s progress. At that time, only four employees of the representative office remained in the DPRK, facing basic shortages. Frequent personnel changes occurred, and the representation was briefly taken over by the office in Beijing. From June 1951 to 1955, the office was based in Maram (25 km from Pyongyang). In 1954, the legation was elevated to the status of an embassy, and in 1955, it returned to the capital.

Key communication between the governments of Czechoslovakia and the DPRK in the 1950s primarily took place through the Czechoslovak representative office in the DPRK. Beyond routine matters, employees were tasked, for example, with verifying conditions in Korean orphanages. As telegrams indicate, the embassy often had to deal with uncooperative and unreliable Korean counterparts — much like the NNSC and the hospital — which gradually began to affect bilateral relations.

Korean studies scholars from Charles University were also dispatched to Korea. For instance, Jaroslav Bařinka (1931–2020) served as a translator for the commercial department of the representative office during his study stay in the DPRK (1956–1959). Hana Roubíčková, Hana Burešová, and Libor Pecl – with Pecl later serving as a diplomat at the embassy – acted as interpreters within the NNSC. Vladimír Pucek was sent as an interpreter to the hospital in Ch’ŏngjin, where he worked from January 1955 to March 1956; Josef Šrám then replaced him. Pucek then again returned to Korea and, from November 1958 to September 1962, took over from Jaroslav Bařinka in the commercial department.

The DPRK legation in Prague was established in 1951, and its first envoy received a grand welcome. The legation primarily fulfilled a representational role but also oversaw the education of Korean children and students in Czechoslovakia, issuing various demands beyond agreed terms. In 1956, North Korean leader Kim Ilsung visited Czechoslovakia during his Eastern Europe tour, and three years later, President Antonín Novotný undertook a state visit to the DPRK.