Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Kim Jong-un takes train to Hanoi for US-NK summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves from his armored train before departing for Hanoi at Pyongyang Station in this photo released by the North's Rodong Sinmun, Sunday. Yonhap
By Kim Bo-eun
NK leader to make official friendly visit to Vietnam
By Kim Bo-eun
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un departed for Hanoi via his armored train for his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump this week, Pyongyang's state media reported Sunday.
According to the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim left Pyongyang Station on Saturday for the summit to be held Wednesday through Thursday. Kim's wife Ri Sol-ju was not included in the report's list of delegates accompanying the North Korean leader.
The KNCA stated this would be “an official friendly visit at the invitation of Vietnam's President Nguyen Phu Trong.” It said the leaders of the countries would meet, but did not specify the official period of Kim's visit to Vietnam.
There is possibility Kim could take the train to Beijing or Guangzhou and fly the rest of the route to Hanoi, as his grandfather, former leader Kim Il-sung, did for his visits to Vietnam in 1958 and 1964.
However, it appears more likely he will transfer at the Vietnamese border city of Dong Dang in Lang Son Province to travel the rest of the distance by road. Soldiers were deployed to Dong Dang railway station on Saturday and along the road to Hanoi, according to reports.
This would mean he would travel 4,500 kilometers across China, which would take more than 60 hours, in a train whose top speed is estimated at 60 kilometers per hour.
This is in contrast to the North Korean leader's choice of travel for his first summit with Trump in Singapore, to which he traveled via a Chinese plane.
Kim is seen to have opted for the train to replicate trips by his grandfather as the successor of the Kim regime.
The train trip could enable the leader to make stops at sites to inspect economic development, just as Kim Il-sung visited sites nearby Guangzhou with then-Chinese leader Mao Zhedong on his first trip to Vietnam in 1958.
The train ride crossing China's mainland could also show that Beijing has Pyongyang's back ahead of the U.S.-North Korea summit.
In addition, the train may have been opted over North Korea's state jet Chammae-1, a Soviet-era IL-62M for safety reasons.
While it is capable of traveling distances of up to 10,000 kilometers, the jet is old and North Korea is known to lack pilots that have experience flying long distance.
Meanwhile, the venue of the summit in Hanoi is likely to be the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel. North Korean officials led by Kim Chang-son, chief secretary the regime's secretariat of state affairs, were seen checking facilities at the hotel, along with a U.S. official, according to reports.
Officials of North Korea and the U.S. are seen to have held a series of working-level negotiations in Hanoi through Sunday, on denuclearization steps and corresponding measures. Trump said scaling down U.S. troops in South Korea was not on the table this time. Attention had grown over the possibility that the U.S. president could bring this up as a corresponding measure for North Korea taking denuclearization steps.
Trump, meanwhile, is set to depart Washington for Hanoi on Monday, local time. National Security Adviser John Bolton will likely accompany him. Bolton, who had been scheduled to visit Seoul to meet his South Korean counterpart, canceled his trip, which the White House said was “to focus on events in Venezuela.”