VIETNAMESE President Tran Duc Luong left on Thursday for a four-day official trip to North Korea aimed at bolstering ties between the two communist states.
Luong will be the first top leader from Vietnam to visit Stalinist North Korea in four decades.
During the visit, Luong is expected to meet the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and number two Kim Yong-Nam, Vietnamese official newspapers said. Kim Yong-Nam visited Vietnam last year.
Relations between the ideological soulmates have only recently begun to recover from the north’s anger over Hanoi’s 1992 recognition of South Korea.
The two communist governments also took rival positions during the Cold War, with Pyongyang following Beijing in its split with Moscow but Hanoi remaining loyal to its Soviet bloc sponsors.
In recent years, an increasingly isolated Pyongyang has sought to mend its diplomatic fences.
The market reforms of the past decade and a half have turned Vietnam into the world’s second biggest rice exporter, making the communist state an attractive former ally for Pyongyang to woo back in the face of severe domestic food shortages.
Accompanying Luong on the trip will be Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Le Huy Ngo, Construction Minister Nguyen Manh Kiem and Transport Minister Le Ngoc Hoan.
Communist Vietnam’s founding father Ho Chi Minh visited North Korea in 1957 while the Pyongyang strongman Kim Il-Sung visited Vietnam the following year.
Luong is to visit Myanmar following his North Korea trip. – AFP
