North Korean leader Kim Jong Un set off by train for Vietnam on Saturday, for his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump next week, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
The report came hours after Vietnam announced that Kim would make an official visit in “coming days”, as the Southeast Asian country prepares to host the summit with Trump on Wednesday and Thursday.
No details of the leaders’ travel arrangements, or for the summit, have been officially released.
A landmark first summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore in June produced a promise by Kim to work toward the complete denuclearization of the divided Korean Peninsula. But progress has been scant.
Kim left the North Korean capital of Pyongyang at around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) in an armored train, TASS said, citing a North Korean diplomatic source.
It could take Kim at least two and a half days to travel the thousands of kilometers through China by train to Vietnam. His train is expected to stop at the Vietnamese border station of Dong Dang, where he will disembark and drive 170 km (105 miles) to Hanoi by car, the sources said earlier.
Vietnamese police have stepped up security around the border station ahead of Kim’s arrival.
On Feb. 26, Vietnam will ban traffic on the road Kim is expected to take to Hanoi from a station on the Chinese border, state media said.
The preferred location for the summit is the Government Guesthouse, a colonial-era building in central Hanoi, three sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
They said the Metropole Hotel would be a backup location for the summit and Kim could possibly stay in the Melia hotel. A Reuters witness saw workers laying communication cables in the streets behind the Metropole late on Friday.
At the same time, some foreign media organizations received a note from Vietnam’s foreign ministry prohibiting live broadcasts in and around the Melia hotel and Hoan Kiem lake in the center of Hanoi.
The JW Marriott hotel, where Trump is widely expected to stay, will also be out of bounds to live broadcasts, according to a copy of the note reviewed by Reuters.
Several hotels visited by Reuters on Saturday around the scenic Hoan Kiem lake said they had been told by the authorities to restrict access to their rooftops.
(REUTERS)
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