Kim Jong-un proposes wide-ranging cooperation with Vietnam

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed his willingness to intensify bilateral cooperation "in all areas", during his official visit to Vietnam, Pyongyang state media reported on Saturday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report is on Kim's official two-day state visit to Vietnam that began on Friday following his second summit with US President Donald Trump in Hnaoi that ended abruptly on Thursday and without any joint agreement, reports Efe news.

During his meetings with Vietnamese leaders, Kim expressed his desire to "normalise cooperation and exchanges in all areas, such as the economy, science, technology, sports, culture, art and media", and to "raise bilateral relations to a new level", according to KCNA.

The North Korean dictator stressed on "the friendly relations between the two countries and the two parties of the same blood", and pointed out that Pyongyang's "unwavering position" is to "extend (those relations) for generations to come".

On Friday, Kim met Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, where they held talks, exchanged gifts and later attended an official state banquet in the evening, as well as with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Speaker of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

It is the first time in 55 years that a North Korean leader has visited Vietnam, after the last was made by Kim Jong-un's grandfather and founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung.

Kim Jong-un will culminate his trip on Saturday with a visit to the mausoleum of Vietnamese national hero Ho Chi Minh, who was a communist revolutionary leader and the first President and first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and with whom his grandfather met in Hanoi in 1964.

He will then travel by his limousine to the Dong Dang train station near the Chinese border, a journey of some 140 km with roads closed to any other traffic, where he will board his armoured train for his 4,500-km journey back to Pyongyang.

--IANS

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