HANOI, Vietnam -- 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, state media reported.

The Communist Party's mouthpiece Nhan Dan newspaper late Friday quoted Vietnam's Department of Roads as saying the ban will first apply to trucks 10 tons or bigger, and vehicles with nine seats or more on the 170-kilometre (105-mile) stretch of Highway One from Dong Dang, the border town with China, to Hanoi from 7 p.m. on Monday to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, followed by a complete ban Tuesday on all vehicles from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The summit is slated for Wednesday and Thursday.

It gave no other details. The move implies that 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.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Kim will pay an official goodwill visit to Vietnam "in the coming days" in response to the invitation of President Nguyen Phu Trong, who is also the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.

The People's Committee in Lang Son province, where the Dong Dang railway station is located, issued a statement Friday instructing the road operator to clean the stretch of the highway and suspend road works among other things to serve "a political task" on Feb. 24-28.

The second summit in Hanoi takes place following the historic meeting in Singapore last June where Kim and Trump reached a vaguely worded commitment from North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapon program.

Kim travelled to Singapore by plane on loan from China.

Hanoi has been gearing up for the summit with beefed up security. Officials say the colonial-era Government Guest House in central Hanoi is expected to be the venue of the meeting, with the nearby Metropole Hotel as a backup.

Streets around the two places have been beautified with flowers and flags of North Korea, the U.S and Vietnam.

Workers were also putting final touches on the International Media Center. The Foreign Ministry says some 2,600 members of the foreign press have registered for the event. </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, Vietnam — The Latest on the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump (all times local):

President Donald Trump is calling the relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam an “example” of what can become of North Korea if it gives up its nuclear weapons.

Trump paid a courtesy call Wednesday to Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong ahead of his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi.

Trump says, “We both felt very good about having this very important summit in Vietnam because you really are an example as to what can happen, with good thinking.”

The Vietnamese leader says his country has “been making all necessary preparations to ensure the best conditions for the success of this very special meeting.”

Trump is thanking Vietnam for hosting the summit and for agreeing to new trade deals with American companies, including Boeing.

U.S. President Donald Trump is meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart hours before he is set to sit down with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Trump is greeting Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong, whose country is hosting the second summit between the leaders of the two technically-warring nations.

The two leaders are set to sign a commercial trade agreement Wednesday before Trump is to meet with Vietnam’s prime minister.

Trump’s courtesy call to the host nation’s leadership is meant to provide Kim with a visualization of a potential future should he give up his country’s nuclear weapons in a deal with the U.S. After a decade of bloody conflict that ended more than four decades ago, the U.S. and Vietnam are now economic and strategic partners.

President Donald Trump’s eldest son is accusing Democrats of trying to distract his father during his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News on Tuesday that he believed the Democrats deliberately scheduled the congressional testimony of Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer, opposite the summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Trump Jr. said that the Democrats were trying to “counterprogram the kind of progress” that could be achieved in the Vietnam gathering and that it was evidence of the “disdain” they hold for the president.

He also argued that it was proof the Democrats were more interested in scoring political points than in national security by attempting to “stymie” the denuclearization talks.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including a campaign finance violation that he says was at the direction of the president.

President Donald Trump says Vietnam, the site of his second round of nuclear talks with Kim Jong Un, is thriving economically and that North Korea could, too, if it would give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Before sitting down with Kim later Wednesday in Hanoi, Trump tweeted that “North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize. The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un.”

In a second tweet, Trump took a shot at Democrats in Washington, saying they should stop telling him what to do with North Korea and “ask themselves instead why they didn’t do ‘it’ during eight years of the Obama Administration?” </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> 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> 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> North Korea were included in the eight-country list – also including Chad, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen – which makes up the US President’s controversial travel ban signed last year. Pyongyang, in an open letter, slammed Donald Trump, after the billionaire President threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea during his debut speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, last week.

“If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power to its knees through nuclear war threat, it is a big miscalculation and ignorance.” The letter, sent on Sunday, added: “From the first day of his office, Trump has conducted high-handed and arbitrary practices, scrapping international laws and agreements giving priority to the US’ own interests at the expense of the whole world.” Citizens from the listed nations will face new restrictions on entry to the US under the proclamation signed by Mr Trump.

On Twitter, the US President wrote: “Making America say is my number one priority. “We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet.” The new rules will go into effect on October 18, leaving most citizens from the countries indefinitely banned from entering the US.

The announcement comes on the same day as Mr Trump’s temporary travel ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority countries expires, 90 days after it went into effect. The new proclamation reads: “As President, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people. “North Korea does not cooperate with the United States Government in any respect and fails to satisfy all information-sharing requirements.” </s> At the Hanoi Summit, Trump Should Hold Himself to His Own Standards

President Donald Trump will have to rely heavily on his personal deal-making skills to get through his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, set for Feb. 27 and 28 in Hanoi. That’s exactly what Kim is hoping for.

The format will be similar to the summit held in Singapore last June, with plenty of one-on-one time for the president and supreme leader. That suits Kim just fine. All indications are that the North Koreans are denying the U.S. negotiators any specific written commitments going into Hanoi because they know that capable U.S. State Department officials will insist on concrete and verifiable measures. Because Trump wants the summit with Kim regardless of the actual status of the negotiations over denuclearization, the State Department negotiators are probably going into the summit knowing only slightly more about the likely outcome than the rest of us.

It is a fair guess, though, that the most probable outcome is some variation on the status quo. The Trump administration has dropped demands for a declaration of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities that would be the necessary precursor for an actual denuclearization process. Kim might agree to allow inspectors into the satellite and nuclear test facilities the North has already decommissioned or let inspectors back into the facilities in Yongbyon (for the third time), but these steps would be more symbolic than substantive. Somewhat more significant would be the North giving broader access to its newer uranium enrichment facilities in Yongbyon, but even that would add only limited insights to what Washington already knows. In exchange, Pyongyang would demand significant sanctions rollbacks and a formal declaration ending the Korean War. (Trump is clearly attracted to the latter proposition.) In other words, the core agreement would remain unchanged from the one going into the Singapore summit: a freeze-for-freeze in which North Korea refrains from nuclear and missile tests and the United States continues its halt on military exercises with South Korea—which Trump announced unilaterally in Singapore without consulting South Korea, Japan, or his own Defense Department.

Trump and members of his administration continue to trumpet this as a major accomplishment. This week, Trump told reporters, “There’s no testing. As long as there is no testing, I’m in no rush.” But a freeze-for-freeze is exactly what the Trump administration once swore it would not accept. In September 2017, Nikki Haley, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called the Sino-Russian freeze-for-freeze proposal “insulting,” and the previous month State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said there was “no equivalency” between U.S. exercises and North Korean testing. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put it best in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 25, 2018, when he said:

The widely discussed “freeze for freeze” scheme—halting North Korean missile tests in return for abandoning defined Allied military exercises—will not … fulfill this purpose or even advance it. That would equate legitimate security operations with activities which have been condemned by the UN Security Council for decades. And it would encourage demands for additional restraints on, and perhaps the dismantling of, America’s alliances in the region. In its ultimate sense, a freeze would legitimize North Korea’s nuclear establishment as well as the results of its previous tests.

The self-imposed military exercise freeze will almost certainly continue after the Hanoi summit, and that could be compounded by a declaration officially ending the Korean War—which would not mean much. The United States should give diplomacy a chance, but Congress and the media should hold Trump to the standards his administration already set. </s> 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.
The United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee permits those North Koreans on its global travel ban list to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, for the second summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.