Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is planning a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to media reports in Pyongyang. The eventual meeting would be Kim's first with a foreign head of state in Pyongyang. The dispatch of the North Korean government agency KCNA does not specify dates, but reports the words of Assad. “I will visit North Korea and meet His Excellency Kim Jong-un”. Relations between the two countries, according to intelligence sources, also include arms sales.
Pyongyang has had diplomatic relations with Syria since 1966, when the embassy was opened in Damascus. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the collaboration between the two countries also took on a military profile with the dispatch of about 530 North Korean military experts (pilots and missile experts).
In the past, the United Nations has accused North Korea of collaborating with Syria on the chemical weapons development program, a charge ever denied by North Korean leader Kim.
If confirmed, the summit would fall into the series of meetings that the Korean leader has undertaken since the beginning of the year (China, South Korea and the scheduled 12 meeting in Singapore with US President Trump), but would be the first with a country isolated from the international community.