North Korea Says Syria’s Assad Will Visit With Kim

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, left, was visited by North Korea’s newly appointed ambassador to Damascus, Mun Jong-nam, on Wednesday.CreditSyrian Arab News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria plans to visit North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, the North’s state-run news media said on Sunday, suggesting that Mr. Kim is continuing his outreach to American adversaries even as he courts President Trump.

The report, which was not confirmed by Syria, came just days after Mr. Trump announced that the previously canceled summit between the American president and Mr. Kim in Singapore was back on for June 12.

If Mr. Assad were to visit Pyongyang, it would be the first time that Mr. Kim hosted a meeting with another head of state in the North Korean capital.

“The optics are horrendous given that Kim Jong-un is trying to posture as a good guy,” said Sue Mi Terry, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Hosting Assad, one of the worst butchers on the planet, as your first foreign leader visit is not a good P.R. move.”

Mr. Assad and Mr. Kim have much in common. Both are heirs to family dynasties in countries that have long thumbed their noses at the international system, saying that it was biased against them and in favor of their foes. They also have a shared interest in developing powerful weapons.

After years of isolation, Mr. Kim has aggressively pursued diplomatic relations in recent months. Last week in Pyongyang, he hosted Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, the first senior Russian official to meet with the young North Korean leader.

New York Times