Farewell comrade: North Korean despot Kim Jong-un visits Cuban embassy after Castro death

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited the Cuban embassy in Pyongyang to sign a book of condolences for his late communist comrade Fidel Castro, who died on Friday night.

Kim declared three days of national mourning for the Latin American revolutionary, who was cherished in the North as a comrade-in-arms against the common enemy of the United States.

The Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea was accompanied by senior government officials during the visit to the embassy while a delegation of other North Korean diplomats will attend the funeral in Cuba next week.

Flags in Pyongyang and around the country have also been lowered to half mast.

Pictures released of the rotund North Korean despot show him dressed in black and looking sombre as he met dignitaries at the Cuban embassy.

According to the state news agency, Kim wrote in the book of condolences: "We feel pain of the loss of the great comrade, the great comrade-in-arms."

He earlier released a statement describing Castro as a "distinguished leader", saying: "Though he passed away, the precious feats he performed will remain forever in the hearts of the peoples of our two countries and the hearts of progressive mankind.

"I express conviction



that the revolutionary Cuban people would overcome the pain they suffer from the loss of their distinguished leader and certainly build the prospering ideal society of the people and achieve the victory of the socialist cause under the wise leadership of you, Comrade Raul Castro Ruz, true to the lifetime intention of Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz."

Fidel Castro: 1926 - 2016

After surviving more than 600 assassination attempts, defying 10 US Presidents and shaping half a century of history, Fidel Castro died aged 90, on 25th November 2016.

No other world leader's death has been marked in this way in North Korea since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.

Castro was a hugely divisive figure, blamed for human rights abuses and tyrannical rule but loved by Cubans for standing up for the island against the neighbouring behemoth of the US.

The two countries established ties in 1960 and Castro visited the North to meet with Kim Jong Un's grandfather - Kim Il Sung, the country's founder - in 1986.

Links have only increased since Fidel's brother Raul took power in 2008.

Castro's funeral date has been set for December 4 and will be held in the country's second largest city of Santiago de Cuba.