While relations between the West and President Bashar al-Assad remain virtually non-existent, the Syrian leader has looked to Asia to forge alliances.

And in a “show of friendship” between the Assad regime and that of North Korean despot Kim Jong-un, a park has been opened in Damascus named after Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

According to Syria’s SANA news agency, gardens and a monument were “inaugurated to mark the seventieth anniversary of Korea’s liberation”. Korea was a colony of Japan until the latter’s surrender in August 1945, at the end of the Second World War.

The ceremony to mark the opening of Kim Il-sung Park in the Kafar Sussa District on Monday was attended by a range of high-ranking government officials, who declared that Syria-North Korea relations were strong.

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Syria’s deputy foreign minister Fayssal Mikdad said in a statement that North Korea represented an example for Syria in its own civil war, Yonhap news agency reported.

Mr Mikdad also stressed the need to improve bilateral ties between the two nations.