HANOI (Reuters) - North Korean special envoy Kim Hyok Chol arrived in Hanoi on Wednesday, a Reuters witness and a source with direct knowledge said, ahead of the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Vietnam’s capital.

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

Kim Hyok Chol arrived in Hanoi with a delegation of six North Koreans, a source with direct knowledge of the visit and who was on his flight told Reuters. </s> North Korean state media on Wednesday reported that after the country's leader will hold a state visit in Vietnam later this week after his summit with United States President Donald Trump.

The Korean Central News Agency KCNA and the newspaper of the ruling Workers Party, the Rodong Sinmun provided in-depth coverage of Kim Jong-un's trip to Vietnam and as well as new details on his agenda, which had not been previously disclosed. </s> HANOI (DPA) - North Korean and United States officials landed in Hanoi on Saturday (Feb 16) as all three countries prepare for the upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, state media reported.

The two delegations are expected to organise logistical coordination for the summit, the VnExpress news site reported.

Hanoi police also said they would dispatch 96 patrol groups to crack down on crime in the 10 days preceding the summit. City landmarks will also be put on round-the-clock police surveillance.

Security for the summit is expected to be tight. While the risk of terrorism is considered extremely low in Vietnam, the capital's density makes the city harder for bodyguards on both the North Korean and US teams to secure their bosses.

Mr Trump and Mr Kim previously met in Singapore in June 2018 following a heated exchange of words, with both threatening war between their nuclear armed states.

Even though Mr Trump has portrayed the first meeting as resolving conflict over the North Korean nuclear programme, Pyongyang has done little to denuclearise the peninsula and US intelligence officials say the country is unlikely to totally disarm.

But as the second summit looms, Vietnam, a former wartime foe of the US, has offered to mediate discussions between Pyongyang and Washington, urging both sides to show restraint.

Speaking in Hanoi in July 2018, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he wished for North Korea to replicate Vietnam's economic development and reconciliation with the US. </s> N. Korea leader Kim Jong Un heads out for official visit with Vietnamese leaders a day after summit breakdown with Trump

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — N. Korea leader Kim Jong Un heads out for official visit with Vietnamese leaders a day after summit breakdown with Trump. </s> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will arrive in Vietnam on Feb. 25 ahead of a planned second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, three sources with direct knowledge of Kims schedule told Reuters on Saturday.

Trump and Kim are due to meet in Hanoi on Feb. 27 and 28 following their historic first meeting last June in Singapore. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday 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.

Vietnams president and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, will meet Kim ahead of a planned trip by Trong to neighboring Laos, one of the sources with direct knowledge told Reuters.

A Reuters witness saw Kims close aide, Kim Chang Son, in Hanoi on Saturday visiting a government guesthouse and the Metropole and Melia hotels in the center of the capital.

Reuters was first to report last month that Hanoi was preparing to receive Kim for a state visit this month.

Communist-ruled 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 socialist ideology and exchanged military and political support during the Vietnam War, are eyeing a new chapter in relations following Hanois opening up and embrace of the West. </s> HANOI, Vietnam — The Latest on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s travels to the summit with President Donald Trump in Vietnam (all times local):

A train similar to one used in the past by Kim Jong Un has entered China, possibly carrying the North Korean leader on a multiday journey to Vietnam’s capital for his summit with President Donald Trump.

An Associated Press reporter saw the green and yellow train cross into the Chinese border city of Dandong through a bridge on Saturday evening.

Russia’s TASS news agency reported hours earlier that Kim departed from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on his personal train.

The Trump-Kim meeting is slated for Wednesday and Thursday in Hanoi. Their first summit last June in Singapore ended without substantive agreements on the North’s nuclear disarmament and triggered a months-long stalemate in negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

Vietnam has announced an unprecedented traffic ban along a possible arrival route of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of his second summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi next week.

The Communist Party’s mouthpiece Nhan Dan newspaper quoted the Roads Department as saying the ban will affect the 105-mile stretch of Highway One from Dong Dang, on the border with China, to Hanoi.

It implies Kim may take a train and disembark at the Dong Dang railway station and proceed by car to Hanoi. It is not known if he will travel by train from Pyongyang via China or fly to a nearby Chinese city. Kim’s overseas travel plans are routinely kept secret.

The summit is slated for Wednesday and Thursday. </s> HANOI: Wearing traditional dresses, the children in Hanoi's only North Korean-founded kindergarten belt out Korean songs and recite their Korean vocabulary - skills they hope to show off to Kim Jong Un when he visits Vietnam next week.

The reclusive North Korean leader is making his first trip to Vietnam to meet with US President Donald Trump between Feb 27 and 28.

It is their second summit, during which Washington hopes to see progress on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

The serious summit agenda was far from the minds of toddlers at the Vietnam-DPRK Friendship Kindergarten on Tuesday (Feb 19).

Instead the three-to-five-year-olds sang and danced in the "Kim Il Sung" classroom, named after Kim Jong Un's grandfather, one of Hanoi's closest allies during the Vietnam War.

"Jal gaseyo!" the kids chanted - goodbye in Korean - at the school where portraits of past communist leaders - Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and Vietnam's revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh - hang on the wall.

Established in 1978, at a time when conflict-battered Hanoi still received aid from Pyongyang, the school was built almost entirely with North Korean donations, from the blankets and mattresses for naptime to the bowls and utensils used at mealtime.

Today, some of the school's 450 pupils learn about North Korean culture, from kimchi and kimbap to traditional dress, and occasionally receive visits from North Korean officials and embassy personnel.

"Even though North Korean friends are in difficult conditions, they still pay due attention to this kindergarten," former head teacher Hoang Thi Thanh said.

The school's current headmaster Ngo Thi Minh Ha is hoping that support extends to North Korea's top leader, who will meet Trump in Hanoi.

"We really hope to welcome North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to visit Vietnam and the Vietnam-DPRK friendship kindergarten, we have proposed our wish (to the embassy)," she said.

Pyongyang has not yet confirmed the summit, with news about its date and location coming only from the White House, and details of the ultra-secretive leader's trip remain unknown.

The meeting is aimed at building on Trump and Kim's first summit in Singapore in June, the first ever meeting between sitting leaders from the US and North Korea, who have never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Former head teacher Thanh said she would love to see Kim visit the school, but is also hoping for a productive summit.

"I hope for peace and stability in Korean peninsula in the next meeting. I also hope this meeting will bring closer the two sides of Korea like (north and south) Vietnam," she said. </s> DONG DANG, Vietnam — The Latest on the summit in Vietnam between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump (all times local):

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being accompanied in Vietnam by a group of top lieutenants including his influential younger sister.

Kim arrived by train at the Dong Dang railway station on the China-Vietnam border on Tuesday and is on his way to Hanoi for a summit with President Donald Trump.

Kim’s younger sister Kim Yo Jong was seen before the leader stepped out of their special train and took a black limousine waiting for him at the train station.

Before Kim Jong Un’s arrival, North Korean officials who had arrived in Vietnam in advance, including his top representative for U.S. affairs, Kim Hyok Chol, had gathered at the train station.

Also accompanying Kim Jong Un is Kim Yong Chol, a former military intelligence chief who has been deeply involved in nuclear diplomacy since North Korea entered talks early last year.

After barrelling through China for three days on his green-and-yellow armoured train, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has switched to another mode of high-security transport after arriving in Vietnam.

He’s now travelling in a massive bulletproof Mercedes encircled by bodyguards.

After arriving at Vietnam’s Dong Dang Station, Kim shook hands with Vietnamese officials and waved to the crowd before stepping into the limousine. A dozen of crew-cut bodyguards flanked the vehicle and ran in formation as it slowly rolled out of the station and headed to Hanoi, where Kim will meet President Donald Trump for their second summit.

Kim’s bodyguards also ran alongside his limousine during his summit with Trump last June in Singapore and his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last April.

Kim Jong Un’s train has arrived in Vietnam for the North Korean leader’s second summit with Donald Trump.

Vietnamese troops in crisp white uniforms and black boots stood at attention Tuesday to welcome Kim on a red carpet beneath large North Korean and Vietnamese flags at the Dong Dang railway station on the China-Vietnam border. A crowd gathered along the road near the station to wave North Korean flags and bouquets of flowers on a cold, drizzling morning.

It wasn’t clear if Kim had visited any places in China on his trip from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to the border. Press reports speculate that he will drive the 170 kilometres to Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, ahead of his Wednesday meeting with Trump.. </s> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will arrive in Vietnam on February 25 ahead of a planned second summit with US President Donald Trump. The pair are expected to discuss the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsular. Mr Trump previously claimed the US would have been 'in a major war with North Korea with potentially millions of people killed', had he not been elected.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits his country's embassy in Hanoi on Tuesday in preparation for the summit.