North Korea's prime minister to visit Vietnam

By Grant McCool

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam said on Thursday that North Korea's prime minister will soon visit Hanoi, an ally whose economic growth and emergence from isolation the United States and others hope Pyongyang may one day emulate.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that "Prime Minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea Kim Yong Il will pay an official visit to Vietnam at a coming date".

"Both sides are actively preparing for the visit," spokesman Le Dung said in the statement.

Communist-ruled Vietnam has relations with both North Korea and South Korea. The latter is the biggest investor in the Southeast Asian country, whose economy is growing at more than eight percent a year.

Leaders of the two Koreas agreed on Thursday to try to bring peace to the Cold War's last frontier, a day after the North signed up to an international deal to disable its nuclear facilities.

The Vietnam government spokesman said Hanoi welcomed the news and was "ready to contribute actively to the improvement of the relationship between the two Koreas as well as the peace process on the Korean peninsula".

In March, Hanoi hosted talks aimed at normalizing relations between communist North Korea and Japan.

Hanoi-based diplomats said they expected Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem to go to Pyongyang by year-end to reciprocate Kim Yong-Il's visit.

Kim has been invited by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The Vietnamese premier last week addressed the United Nations General Assembly, which will vote in October on whether to elect Vietnam to a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council for 2008-09.

On a visit to Hanoi in May, senior U.S. diplomat Christopher Hill, Washington's main negotiator in six-party talks on North Korea, said, "I wish they (North Korea) would look to some of the pragmatism that is displayed in Vietnam and move on in the way that Vietnam has done so well".

North Korea sent troops to help Vietnam during the 1960s and 70s war against the United States and U.S.-backed South Vietnam, and ties have remained strong since.