North Korea made a shocking announcement just days before Kim Jong Un is set to meet with President Trump in Singapore: Syrian President Bashar Assad will also meet with the North Korean leader.
Assad will visit Kim in North Korea, the latter country’s state news agency KCNA said Sunday.
Syrian state media has yet to confirm or report on the visit, and the report did not specify a time or place. But if it takes place in Pyongyang, it will be the first time the North Korean leader has hosted a head of state since he assumed power in 2011.
Assad received his credentials from the nation’s ambassador on Wednesday, KCNA reported.
The report quoted Assad as saying: “The world welcomes the remarkable events in the Korean peninsula brought about recently by the outstanding political caliber and wise leadership of HE (His Excellency) Kim Jong Un.”
“I am sure that he will achieve the final victory and realize the reunification of Korea without fail,” he added.
Kim has met with a handful of leaders in recent months as North Korea looks to rejoin the international community: South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
A February report from the United Nations accused North Korea of making 40 shipments to Syria between 2012 and 2017 of materials that could be used to make chemical weapons. Assad has denied using chemical weapons amid a seven-year civil war in Syria, while the U.S. has accused his regime of using banned chemical arms dozens of times since the bloody conflict began.
Syria and North Korea often send one another messages of support.
Trump announced Friday that he would meet with Kim on June 12 in Singapore days after writing the leader a letter and canceling the trip. Trump met in the Oval Office on Friday with former North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol — the highest-level North Korean official to visit the United States in nearly 20 years.
