Oct 23, 2007, 4:58 GMT
Hanoi - North Korea's premier Kim Yong Il is to arrive in Vietnam later this week for a five-day 'friendly visit,' state media reported Tuesday.
The visit by Kim Yong Il - who is not related to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il - is part of a South-East Asian tour by the premier of the isolated communist state.
Kim Yong Il's trip starts on Friday and is expected to pave the way for a later visit by Kim Jong Il to Hanoi, which has been announced but no date has been given.
No agenda was immediately available for the premier's week-long visit, according to Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the official army newspaper.
The two communist countries are widely expected to express ideological solidarity, even though Vietnam has been administering free-market reforms for the past 20 years while North Korea's command economy keeps the country in desperate poverty.
It was unclear whether the subject of North Korea's nuclear programme would be discussed during the visit.
Kim's visit follows last week's trip by Vietnam's Communist Party leader Nong Duc Manh to Pyongyang where he met with Kim Jong Il and extended an invitation for the supreme leader to visit Vietnam later this year.
Hanoi keeps diplomatic relations with both North and South Korea.
North Korea and Vietnam have not engaged in any significant level of trade with each other in the past decade, while South Korea is one of the largest foreign investors in Vietnam.
Kim, who travels on to Cambodia after Vietnam, may be seeking new trade ties and diplomatic support among countries that have previously been isolated.
Vietnam was subject to a US trade embargo that was only lifted in 1994. Hanoi and Washington later established full diplomatic ties.
Your Talkback on this Story