Choe Thae-Bok, chairman of the communist country's rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly, left on Saturday for a foreign trip which will also take him to Italy, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

"Chairman of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly Choe Thae-Bok and his party left here on Saturday to visit Italy and Syria," said the one-line dispatch, monitored here.

Syria last month denied a British newspaper report that Israel seized nuclear material in a commando raid on a secret military site.

US media reports also said a mysterious Israeli air strike in Syria in September may have targeted a joint nuclear project.

Suspicions were heightened when North Korea's number two Kim Yong-Nam had "a friendly talk" with a high-ranking Syrian delegation in Pyongyang two weeks after the strike.

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