'No testing, no rush'

• US, N Korea envoys arrive in Hanoi ahead of Trump-Kim summit
• Vietnam preparing for Kim to arrive by train

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that while he hoped his next meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would yield much progress, he was also in "no rush" for results.

"I'd like to see ultimately denuclearization of North Korea," he told reporters, just over a week out from the February 27-28 summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

"I think that North Korea and Chairman Kim have some very positive things in mind and we'll soon find out, but I'm in no rush," he said, adding that sanctions were continuing in the meantime.

"I hope that positive things are going to happen. I think it'll be a very exciting couple of days."

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 toward "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means.

A State Department statement meanwhile said the US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was travelling to Hanoi in preparation for the summit.

An AFP reporter and source confirmed Pyongyang's special representative for the US Kim Hyok Chol arrived in Hanoi yesterday with a North Korean delegation.

Kim Hyok Chol is expected to meet with Stephen Biegun later in the week to lay the groundwork for talks between Trump and Kim in the Vietnamese capital on February 27-28.

Two sources with direct knowledge of security and logistics planning told Reuters yesterday Vietnam is preparing for Kim to arrive by train for his summit in Hanoi next week with Trump.

Kim's train will stop at the Vietnamese border station of Dong Dang, where he will disembark and drive 170 km to Hanoi by car, the sources said.

Kim could possibly stay in the Melia hotel during his visit, one of the sources said.

Separately, three other sources with direct knowledge of the summit preparations told Reuters the preferred location for the meeting between the leaders is the Government Guesthouse, a colonial-era government building in central Hanoi.