Syrian President Bashar Assad announced plans to visit North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a report on Sunday.
“I am going to visit [North Korea] and meet HE Kim Jong Un,” Assad said as he received the credentials of Pyongyang’s ambassador late last week, Reuters reported, citing North Korean state media.
“The world welcomes the remarkable events in the Korean peninsula brought about recently by the outstanding political caliber and wise leadership of HE Kim Jong Un,” Assad said, according the report.
{mosads}“I am sure that he will achieve the final victory and realize the reunification of Korea without fail,” he added.
Reuters, which noted the positive relations between the isolated nations, said there was no immediate comment from Assad’s office.
The news service added that the talks would mark Kim’s first public meeting with another head of state in Pyongyang.
The development comes after a planned summit between Kim and President Trump was resurrected.
Trump said after meeting in the Oval Office with a top North Korean official on Friday that the summit would take place as scheduled on June 12.
Kim Yong Chol hand-delivered a personal letter from the North Korean leader — a gesture meant to ease tensions that Trump cited when scrapping the summit one week earlier.
“We’re going to be June 12 — we’ll be in Singapore. It’ll be a beginning,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
“I think we’re going to have a very positive result in the end,” he added.