North Korean Ambassador to Syria Mun Jong Nam died from a stroke in recent days, Syrian state media reported Tuesday. 

The country’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad met with the new DPRK charge d’affaires Kim Hye Ryong and military attachés in Damascus and praised Mun for his work to improve bilateral relations, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

Mun became ambassador to Rome in 2017, but Italy expelled him only a few months later in protest of North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile tests that year. 

He took up the top post in Damascus the following year and