North Korea and Belarus celebrated the 32nd anniversary of diplomatic relations last week, and while they have maintained only trivial ties for most of that time, that could be about to change.

So similar are the regimes in style, substance and execution that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarussian opposition leader now in exile, suggested her country was morphing into the “the North Korea of Europe.” 

This helps explain why both Kim and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, have expressed warm regard and support for one another in recent years, with the latter repeatedly calling for further cooperation.

Now, both countries