North Korea’s Kim sends rare sympathy message to Japan over Ishikawa quake

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a “message of sympathy” to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida following the devastating earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture earlier this week that has left 100 people dead and more than 200 missing.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a short dispatch Saturday that Kim had “expressed his deep sympathy and condolences to the prime minister and, through him, to the bereaved families and victims” a day earlier.

In the extremely rare communication between the two countries’ leaders — Kim’s first to Kishida — the North Korean strongman said he “sincerely hoped that the people in the affected areas would … restore their stable life at the earliest date possible.”