North Korean leader Kim Jong Un set off by train for Vietnam, for his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump next week. Emulating his late father and grandfather, who took epic train trips when they were leaders, Kim set off on the long journey from Pyongyang on Saturday, with a military honour guard seeing him off in the North Korean capital.
His departure from the Pyongyang railway station was confirmed by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, with official photos showing him waving from the train for what could be a 60-hour journey to Vietnam.
Trump and Kim will meet in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, eight months after their historic summit in Singapore in June – the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader – at which they pledged to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Travel by train has been a favourite mode of transport for Kim Jong Un, and his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung.