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| North Korean first lady Ri Sol-ju and U.S. first lady Melania Trump / Korea Times file |
Will Kim Yo-jong, Ivanka Trump meet?
By Kim Bo-eun
The first ladies of North Korea and the U.S. are unlikely to come to Hanoi.
There had been speculation about a possible meeting between Ri Sol-ju and Melania Trump, but North Korea and the U.S. appear to have excluded any events that could take attention away from the summit.
Ri was not on the list of North Korean delegates accompanying leader Kim Jong-un to Hanoi for the summit with the U.S., in the North's Rodong Sinmun's report on Sunday. She was absent from footage unveiled by North Korean media of her husband Kim departing Pyongyang.
Sara Cook of CBS News posted on Twitter that Melania Trump will not be traveling to Vietnam, citing this was confirmed by her spokesperson Stephanie Grisham.
Neither of the first ladies were present at the first summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore last June.
However, there had been expectations that they may meet this time, as announcements were made the summit would take place over two days.
Ri accompanied her husband for two summits with South Korea and three with China.
Rep. Kim Jong-dae of the Justice Party, who is known as a security expert, said relations between Pyongyang and Washington weren't ripe enough for the first ladies of the countries to meet yet.
"I don't think bilateral relations are developed to the extent that the first couples would meet, even if they had their first summit," he said on a local radio show, Monday.
He also said it may not be appropriate for such a meeting to take place because the summit will be held in a third country.
Meanwhile, it is uncertain whether Ivanka Trump, daughter and senior adviser to the U.S. president, is part of the U.S. delegation.
In the case she is, she may meet with Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong, who is part of the North Korean delegation. Kim Yo-jong, an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the North's Workers' Party, works closely with her brother.
Kim Yo-jong traveled to Singapore for the first summit. Her role has been compared to that of Ivanka Trump's.
They both visited the South for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics last year, but Kim attended the opening ceremony and Ivanka the closing ceremony.
