Even the kids are ready for Kim’s visit

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will arrive in Vietnam next Monday for the much anticipated meeting with Donald Trump.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will arrive in Vietnam next Monday, ahead of a planned second summit with US President Donald Trump, three sources with direct knowledge of Kim’s schedule said.

Trump and Kim are due to meet in Hanoi next Wednesday and Thursday following their historic first meeting last June in Singapore.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington aims to “get as far down the road as we can” at the summit.

Kim will meet with Vietnamese officials when he arrives in Hanoi, said the sources, who requested anonymity citing the sensitivity and secrecy surrounding the movements of the North Korean leader.

He will also visit the Vietnamese manufacturing base of Bac Ninh and the industrial port town of Hai Phong, one source said.

Vietnam’s president and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, will meet Kim ahead of a trip by Trong to neighbouring Laos, one of the sources said.

A witness saw Kim’s aide, Kim Chang-son, in Hanoi on Saturday visiting a government guesthouse and the Metropole and Melia hotels in the centre of the capital.

Vietnam, which has embraced economic reforms and developed close diplomatic ties with its former foe the United States, has been widely touted as a model of reform for isolated and impoverished North Korea.

The former Cold War allies, which share a similar ideology and exchanged support during the Vietnam War, are eyeing a new stage in relations following Hanoi’s opening up to the West. — Reuters