<p class="title">US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet for a second much-anticipated summit in Hanoi, as preparations kick into high gear for the peace talks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Trump announced the exact location on Twitter -- only the country, Vietnam, was previously known -- for the follow-on to the leaders' summit in Singapore last year as he hailed "very productive" preparatory talks between diplomats from the two countries.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un," Trump said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28. I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim & advancing the cause of peace!"</p>.<p class="bodytext">The US State Department said the special US envoy for North Korea will meet again with Pyongyang officials ahead of the Trump-Kim talks -- hours after he returned to Seoul from talks in the North on the summit's agenda.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In a statement, the State Department said talks during Stephen Biegun's three-day trip explored Trump and Kim's "commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base late Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The State Department confirmed Biegun agreed to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol again before the leaders' talks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">North Korea has yet to provide any official confirmation of the summit and Kim Jong Un appeared to make no mention of it during a meeting earlier with the top brass of the Korean People's Army.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As reported by state media, the meeting focused on the need to modernize the military while maintaining party discipline in the ranks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Biegun is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Attention will focus on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps toward denuclearization.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war."</p>.<p class="bodytext">The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The US envoy was also likely to have discussed with his counterpart protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit.</p>.<p class="bodytext">At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."</p>.<p class="bodytext">But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV."</p>
<p class="title">US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet for a second much-anticipated summit in Hanoi, as preparations kick into high gear for the peace talks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Trump announced the exact location on Twitter -- only the country, Vietnam, was previously known -- for the follow-on to the leaders' summit in Singapore last year as he hailed "very productive" preparatory talks between diplomats from the two countries.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un," Trump said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28. I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim & advancing the cause of peace!"</p>.<p class="bodytext">The US State Department said the special US envoy for North Korea will meet again with Pyongyang officials ahead of the Trump-Kim talks -- hours after he returned to Seoul from talks in the North on the summit's agenda.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In a statement, the State Department said talks during Stephen Biegun's three-day trip explored Trump and Kim's "commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base late Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The State Department confirmed Biegun agreed to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol again before the leaders' talks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">North Korea has yet to provide any official confirmation of the summit and Kim Jong Un appeared to make no mention of it during a meeting earlier with the top brass of the Korean People's Army.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As reported by state media, the meeting focused on the need to modernize the military while maintaining party discipline in the ranks.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Biegun is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Attention will focus on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps toward denuclearization.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war."</p>.<p class="bodytext">The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The US envoy was also likely to have discussed with his counterpart protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit.</p>.<p class="bodytext">At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."</p>.<p class="bodytext">But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV."</p>