DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui Hosts Vietnamese FM in Pyongyang, Pledging Deeper Bilateral Ties

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui held talks with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung in Pyongyang on May 14, 2026. Trung traveled as a special envoy of Vietnamese President and Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, carrying significant political weight as a CPV Politburo member rather than a routine diplomatic envoy. The two sides pledged to strengthen political trust through all-level exchanges, expand cooperation in areas of mutual interest, promote people-to-people exchanges, and coordinate at multilateral forums including the UN and ASEAN Regional Forum. Trung also met separately with Kim Song-nam, WPK Politburo member and Secretary for International Affairs, to discuss party-to-party cooperation. Both sides congratulated each other on the success of their respective party congresses — Vietnam's 14th National Congress of the Communist Party and DPRK's 9th Workers' Party Congress. The meeting built on Vietnamese President To Lam's October 2025 state visit to Pyongyang — the first top-level Vietnamese visit to North Korea in 18 years — during which bilateral cooperation documents were signed. Vietnam is one of the few non-Chinese, non-Russian nations maintaining substantive ties with Pyongyang, leveraging its own history as a socialist state that successfully normalized relations with the West. The visit signals DPRK's continuing effort to broaden diplomatic relationships beyond the Russia-China axis amid ongoing international isolation.