[4] Sankara, a Marxist revolutionary, visited Pyongyang several times, first as Prime Minister on 13 March 1983 and then as President on 3 September 1985.

[1] Relations remained close during the early reign of Sankara's successor, Blaise Compaoré, who took power in a 1987 military coup.

[7] In the late 1980s there were several cases of cooperation between the two countries – for example, the DPRK constructed an open-air theatre in Koudougou,[8] and a trade agreement to exchange Burkinabé cotton and minerals for North Korean agricultural machinery was signed.

In 1998 the North Korean government completed the construction of five small water reservoirs in Burkina Faso.

[10] Straying from the traditional relations, Burkina Faso – a temporary UNSC member at the time – voted in favour of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 in 2009, imposing further economic sanctions on North Korea.