About the Author
Chad O'Carroll
Chad O'Carroll has written on North Korea since 2010 and writes between London and Seoul.
Kim Jong Un and Syria’s Bashar Assad have exchanged correspondence 12 times in 2021, NK News analysis of North Korean state media showed on Friday, four times the frequency of Kim’s reported communications with China’s Xi Jinping during the same period.
Last week, Kim received a ceremonial note of thanks from the Syrian president for sending congratulations to Assad “upon his victory in the presidential election,” Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, the latest communication in one of Kim’s most frequently used leader-to-leader correspondence lines in 2021.