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- Kim Jong Un’s famous running bodyguards were back in action on Tuesday ahead of the US-North Korea summit in Vietnam.
- The 12 black-suited bodyguards act as an elite human shield for the North Korean leader, and are hand-picked for marksmanship, martial arts skill, and attractiveness.
- The guards escorted Kim’s official Mercedes as it passed through Hanoi on Tuesday, breaking in to a synchronized jog as the car sped up.
- Donald Trump and Kim are due to meet for their second set of talks between the countries on Wednesday. The first was in Singapore last year.
Kim Jong Un’s 12 bodyguards, who seamlessly jog in formation around his official Mercedes, have made the journey to Vietnam for Wednesday’s US-North Korea summit.
The suited guards shot to fame eight months ago when they jogged in formation around Kim’s car as it passed through Singapore during the first summit between Donald Trump and Kim, the first top-level meeting between the US and North Korea.
They were captured again by TV cameras on Tuesday. Footage below from Euronews shows them transitioning into jogging formation as Kim’s official Mercedes passed crowds on the way to his residence in Hanoi:
Becoming one of Kim’s jogging guards requires a lot of testing and a rigorous selection process.
Kim’s bodyguards act as a human shield for the North Korean leader, and are hand picked for fitness, height, eyesight, marksmanship, martial arts skill, and even how good looking they are, the BBC’s South Korea correspondent Laura Bicker tweeted.
They’re all soldiers from the Korean People’s Army (KPA,) and are picked by a government agency called Central Party Office Number Six, the BBC reported.
Kim made his way to Vietnam by taking a 2.5-day train journey from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, via China, to Vietnam’s Dang Dong train station.
He arrived at 8:15 a.m local time on Tuesday to a red carpet welcome.
Kim then got in a black Mercedes which drove him the last 100 miles to Hanoi. President Trump is expected to arrive in Hanoi on Tuesday night, ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.
Trump and Kim meet on Wednesday and Thursday this week for the head-of-state-level talks between the two countries. The first was their meeting in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
YTN
At that summit Trump and Kim signed a joint statement which aimed to cool nearly seven decades of mutual hostility.
The joint letter left the door open for future talks — now come to fruition at the Vietnam 2019 edition — but only briefly touched the stated US goal of denuclearization.
On Monday, Trump said he was "not in a rush" to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program.
The day before he had floated a bring, non-nuclear future for North Korea, tweeting that the nation "could fast become one of the great economic powers anywhere in the World" if it ditches nuclear weapons.
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Bill Bostock)