Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea from June 8 to 9, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday, his first trip in nearly seven years as Beijing looks to reassert ties with Pyongyang, EDnews reports via Reuters.
The announcement follows separate summits Xi hosted in Beijing for US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. Trump, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, previously said he would be open to meeting the North Korean leader again.
Xi would be visiting on an invitation from Kim, North Korean state media KCNA said.
Kim was a guest at a massive military parade in Beijing last September, travelling to the Chinese capital on his signature green armoured train.
Since becoming China's top leader in 2012, Xi has so far visited North Korea once, and South Korea twice. He also travelled to Pyongyang in 2008 when he was vice president and Kim's father - Kim Jong Il - was the North's leader.
This week, KCNA reported on Kim's visit to a newly operational nuclear material production factory at which he called for an "exponential" expansion of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal.
Experts have linked Kim's site visit to the impending meeting with Xi. Before travelling to Beijing in September, Kim inspected plans for a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the "Hwasong-20."
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