North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho will visit Syria following a planned trip this week to Vietnam, a diplomatic source confirmed to NK News on Wednesday.

Ri is expected to depart Pyongyang for Hanoi on Thursday, where he is set to meet with his local counterpart, foreign minister and deputy prime minister Pham Binh Minh.

He will then head to Syria, though his schedule while in Damascus remains unclear.

The trip may see the two countries begin to lay the groundwork for a planned summit between DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

The visit will represent the first by a North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs to the country, a long-time DPRK ally, in over four years.

Despite that gap, relations between the two countries have remained close.

Pyongyang has provided Damascus with extensive military and political support throughout the country’s devastating seven-year civil war.

Syria has throughout that conflict reportedly been a reliable client for North Korea’s arms industry, with Pyongyang reported to have assisted Damascus in its chemical weapons program, among other things.

The two countries’ leaders exchanged greetings last week, on the occasion of the 48th anniversary of Syria’s “corrective movement” which brought incumbent President Assad’s father to power.

The trip will not be the DPRK foreign minister’s first to the region this year: Ri previously visited Iran – a key Syrian ally – in August, where he met with President Hassan Rouhani and other top officials.

It also comes as North Korea has sought to strengthen ties with traditional allies as talks with the U.S. over the nuclear issue and sanctions have slowed.

This push earlier in the month saw Kim Jong Un meet with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel for a lavish summit in Pyongyang – the first of its kind in over 30 years – at which the two leaders reaffirmed their “special friendship.”

North Korea’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam is also currently on a three-country tour of Latin America, making his first stop-over in Venezuela on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Chad O’Carroll

Edited by Colin Zwirko

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