The presidents of North Korea and South Korea are scheduled to meet this Friday, in a prelude to a summit in the works between North Korea's Kim Jong Un and President Trump to talk about North Korea's nuclear program.

The summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will be the third time the countries' top leaders have met since the Korean War. Trump's meeting with Kim is expected to occur next month.

But there's reason for caution when it comes to expectations about North Korea, warns Jean Lee, director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Kim's understanding of "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula — a key U.S. goal — may be very different from what President Trump expects, says Lee, the former Pyongyang bureau chief of the Associated Press.



On whether North Korea has agreed to denuclearization

I think President Trump is in for a rude surprise if he thinks that he's going to come to this summit with Kim Jong Un and that Kim Jong Un is going to say, "Sure, I'll hand over my nuclear weapons" — because that is certainly not the case.

What Kim Jong Un has said is that he supports this concept of a nuclear-free world and that he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so the U.S. may think that that means forcing or requiring North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons without anything from the U.S. side. But North Korea has very consistently said that that, for them, means that the United States also has to give up its nuclear umbrella over the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region.

On whether South Korea's agenda dovetails with what the U.S. is seeking from North Korea

This [inter-Korean] summit will roll out differently, I think, than the anticipated summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un because the North and South Koreans have been preparing for it very methodically, step by step. What we will see is a strong show of unity between the two Korean leaders. This is something that will play well in Pyongyang — for Kim Jong Un to show that he's got the South Korean leader on his side.

The South Koreans will certainly want to discuss denuclearization and discuss the upcoming summit with Donald Trump, and perhaps try to pave the way and lay the groundwork for that summit. They will most likely come up with some agreements at this meeting, perhaps some agreement on reducing the military tensions along the [Demilitarized Zone] and also perhaps some agreement on restarting the family reunions of those Koreans on both sides of the DMZ who hadn't seen each other in more than 65, 70 years.

On what Kim Jong Un hopes to gain from the summit with South Korea

You know, when you tell your people that they are under threat from an outside force or that they are at risk of being attacked, for any country, that brings the people together. And that's what ... North Korea has been doing to its people, is telling them, "We are under threat, we are under attack, and so we need to come together." But the big thing that Kim Jong Un wants is to have a resolution of that peace treaty. He wants something big to celebrate this year. And the big goal for him would be to somehow negotiate a peace treaty to bring that Korean War to an end.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the historic meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, even while sounding a note of caution.

Kim and Moon pledged to work toward the “complete decentralization of the Korean peninsula,” and to seek to declare an official end to the 1950s Korean War and establish a permanent peace agreement.

In a series of tweets, Trump appeared optimistic about the outcome of the summit. The U.S. president is planning his own meeting with Kim, expected in the coming weeks, in what would be the first ever meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries.

“After a furious year of missile launches and Nuclear testing, a historic meeting between North and South Korea is now taking place. Good things are happening, but only time will tell!” he said on Twitter, early on Friday morning in Washington.

He later added: “KOREAN WAR TO END! The United States, and all of its GREAT people, should be very proud of what is now taking place in Korea!”

The first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade took place just months after a surge in tensions between the United States and North Korea, as Trump and Kim exchanged threats and personal insults and Pyongyang made rapid advances in pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles capable of hitting the United States.

In a television interview on Thursday, Trump acknowledged the angry exchanges, including his dubbing of Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and a boast about the size of his nuclear button, as well as the concerns of critics at home and abroad who had accused him of fanning flames.

“Look, it was very, very nasty with Little Rocket Man and with the buttons — and, you know, my button’s bigger than — everybody said this guy’s going to get us into nuclear war,” he told Fox News Channel. “The nuclear war would have happened if you had weak people.”

Trump has long called on China to use its leverage as North Korea’s largest trading partner and sole ally to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, sometimes expressing disappointment with Beijing.

In another tweet on Friday, Trump credited Chinese President Xi Jinping for his help, saying: “Without him it would have been a much longer, tougher, process!”

Trump has said he hopes to meet with Kim in May or June, and a White House official has said Trump may seek to meet with Moon beforehand.

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Friday that Trump could still abandon negotiations with North Korea.

“It’s this president who has said he is willing to come to the table but he always has an exit strategy. If it’s not working for the American people, if it’s not working for diplomatic purposes, then he can just walk away,” she said in an interview with Fox News Channel.</s>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday night headed for the Demilitarized Zone for a historic summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the strip of land that divides their countries, AFP reported.

The meeting on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom, only the third of its kind since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, will be the highest-level encounter yet between the two countries, and is intended to pave the way for a much-anticipated encounter between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In the most detailed direct reference to the process by the North so far, Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said Kim will "open-heartedly discuss... all the issues arising in improving inter-Korean relations and achieving peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean peninsula."

Moon greeted Kim at the concrete blocks that mark the border between the two Koreas in the Demilitarized Zone to begin the rare meeting. When Kim stepped over the line he became the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the Korean War ended 65 years ago.

The North's nuclear arsenal will be high on the agenda at the talks.

The White House welcomed the Moon-Kim meeting.

“On the occasion of Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in’s historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, we wish the Korean people well. We are hopeful that talks will achieve progress toward a future of peace and prosperity for the entire Korean Peninsula. The United States appreciates the close coordination with our ally, the Republic of Korea, and looks forward to continuing robust discussions in preparation for the planned meeting between President Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks," it said in a statement.

Trump in March unexpectedly agreed to a meeting with Kim, to be held by the end of May. Kim later acknowledged for the first time his country’s contacts with the United States.

U.S. officials recently said North Korea had directly confirmed that Kim was willing to negotiate about potential denuclearization. Last week, Kim himself announced that his country would close its nuclear test site and suspend long-range missile tests.

Last year, Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful to date, and launched missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Those actions sent tensions soaring as Kim and Trump traded personal insults and threats of war.

Moon seized on the South's Winter Olympics as an opportunity to broker dialogue between them, and has said his meeting with Kim will serve to set up the summit between Pyongyang and Washington.

Trump has demanded the North give up its weapons, and Washington is pressing for it to do so in a complete, verifiable and irreversible way.

Administration officials said this week that Trump will urge North Korea to act quickly to dismantle its nuclear arsenal when he meets Kim and is not willing to grant Pyongyang substantial sanctions relief in return for a freeze of its nuclear and missile tests.

Trump reiterated on Tuesday that he would walk away from the talks with North Korea if they are not fruitful.

"Unlike past administrations, I will leave the table," he said. "But I think we have the chance to do something very special."</s>SEOUL (Reuters) - Shedding tears behind South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un after the two leaders announced a historic agreement on Friday was a man who has worked for two decades to set up unlikely dialogue between old enemies.

Nearly 18 years after Suh Hoon, a South Korean intelligence official, travelled to Pyongyang to persuade reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to hold an unprecedented first summit in the North Korean capital in 2000, he watched Kim’s son pledging peace on the Korean peninsula on Friday - this time just south of the heavily militarised border.

Friday was the first time any North Korean leader set foot on South Korean soil since the 1950-53 Korean War left the country divided and the two neighbours in a technical state of conflict.

The landmark encounter came less than a year after South Korea’s liberal president Moon took office and quickly tapped Suh as chief of the National Intelligence Service, saying he was “the right person” to revive inter-Korean ties strained over North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles.

“It is too premature to talk about a next inter-Korean summit,” Suh told reporters last year after his appointment was announced, returning him to the agency he quit in 2008 when a conservative government was elected. “But we need it.”

Suh, who personally helped arrange two previous inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007, is viewed as the country’s top expert on North Korea. He is known as the South Korean who met with late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il the most.

Lee Jong-seok, a former unification minister who visited Pyongyang with Suh in 2003 as then-South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun’s special envoys, called Suh the “No. 1 negotiator with North Korea” in his 2014 memoir.

Suh, 64, also lived in North Korea for two years in the late 1990s, involved in a plan to build a nuclear reactor as part of a 1994 international deal to freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear programmes. That deal eventually collapsed.

“He came in knowing already how it works and what to do, and Moon gave him clear political guidance,” said John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul.

The presidential Blue House declined to comment on Suh’s role. The intelligence service could not be reached for comment.

In March, he was part of the 10-member delegation that visited third-generation leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, becoming one of the first South Korean officials to meet Kim since he took power in late 2011 following his father’s death.

At the meeting, Kim not only agreed to meet Moon but also stunned Suh and other envoys by saying he would be willing to discuss denuclearisation with U.S. President Donald Trump - setting the stage for an unprecedented first meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries, possibly in late May or early June.

Suh later also arranged a trip to Pyongyang for his U.S. counterpart, Mike Pompeo, to meet Kim Jong Un from March 31 to April 2, and lay the groundwork for the planned summit, U.S. officials said.

Pompeo, then CIA director and now confirmed as new U.S. Secretary of State, formed a “good relationship” with Kim and their meeting went “very smoothly,” Trump said.

“I think the human network was deeply engaged in hosting these events,” said Moon Hong-sik, research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul. Moon noted Suh had a relationship not only with Pompeo, but also with Kim Yong Chol - a former North Korean military intelligence chief, now leading inter-Korean relations.

Suh was one of two officials Moon picked to join his first official dialogue with Kim Jong Un, who himself was joined by his younger sister Kim Yo Jong, and Kim Yong Chol.

“Just seeing Suh in there spoke volumes about the important role he played in setting up the summit,” said Seo Yu-suk, research manager at the Institute of North Korean Studies in Seoul.</s>South Korea halted anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts across the rivals’ tense border on Monday ahead of inter-Korean talks this week that are expected to focus on the North’s nuclear program, Seoul officials said.

Seoul had blasted anti-Pyongyang messages and K-pop songs from border loudspeakers since the North’s fourth nuclear test in early 2016. Pyongyang quickly matched Seoul’s campaign with its own border broadcasts and launches of balloons carrying anti-South leaflets across the border.

Also read | South Korea’s Moon to meet North Korea’s Kim at border for summit

South Korea, however, turned off its broadcasts to try to ease military tensions and establish an environment for peaceful talks, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

It said Seoul hopes its action would lead to both sides stopping mutual slander and propaganda activities. Yonhap news agency reported unspecified North Korean broadcasts were sporadically heard in the South on Monday morning. South Korean defense officials said they couldn’t immediately confirm the status of the North’s broadcasts.

The move came amid a recent thaw of animosities, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un trying to reach out to Seoul and Washington in recent months.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are to meet at a border village on Friday in the rivals’ third-ever summit talks. Kim is to hold separate summit talks with President Donald Trump in May or early June.

Kim has said he was willing to place his nuclear program up for negotiations. But it was unclear how serious disarmament steps he would offer during the two sets of the summit talks. U.S. officials have said they want to the North to take complete disarmament measures.

North Korea said Saturday it would close its nuclear testing facility and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. But the country stopped short of suggesting it has any intention of giving up its nuclear weapons or scale back its production of missiles and their related component parts.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Trump says NKorea has made nuclear concessions before talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that North Korea's Kim Jong Un has made nuclear weapons concessions before even sitting down for talks, while the U.S. hasn't given up anything.

Trump's assertions came before Friday's summit between North Korea and South Korea that's expected to pave the way for a historic meeting between Trump and Kim in May or June.

Trump told "Fox & Friends" that his tough approach toward the North, and now his willingness to engage with Kim, had reduced the risk of nuclear war. He contended that North Korea has "given up denuclearization, testing, research" and that "we're going to close different sites."

North Korea recently announced it will shutter its nuclear test site and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, and Kim has indicated he's ready to discuss denuclearization. That marks a dramatic shift from the high tensions of last year, when in defiance of world opinion and despite intensified economic sanctions, North Korea rapidly conducted weapons tests.

"I'm saying to myself 'wait a minute, all of these things he's given up and we haven't even really that much asked them,'" Trump said. He added: "We would have asked them, but they gave it up before I even asked."

But doubts linger over Kim's readiness to relinquish nuclear weapons his nation already has, and what he'd want in return. North Korea is already at the brink of being able to threaten the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, and views that capability as a safeguard against American aggression and a defense against regime change.

Trump, who often accuses his predecessors of failing to address the North Korean threat, has argued that the only concession he has made was his surprise decision last month to accept Kim's invitation for a meeting — the first ever between the leaders of the United States and North Korea during six decades of hostility. "I never gave up anything," Trump repeated.

Critics say Kim may see the summit as a way to burnish his international standing and legitimize North Korea's declared status as a nuclear power.

Trump acknowledged the rhetoric that both he and Kim deployed over the last year and the schoolyard taunts of nuclear "buttons" was "very, very nasty" and heightened fears of nuclear war. "This is a much more dangerous ballgame now, but I will tell you it's going very well."

He said "the nuclear war would have happened if you have weak people."

Trump revealed more information about outgoing CIA Director Mike Pompeo's secret trip to North Korea this month, saying Pompeo wasn't supposed to meet with Kim, but that they ended up talking for more than an hour. Later Thursday, the White House released photos of Pompeo and Kim shaking hands. Pompeo, who won Senate confirmation Thursday to become secretary of state, was the most senior U.S. official to meet a North Korean leader since 2000.

"They had a great meeting," Trump said, without revealing what they discussed.

For now, the diplomatic initiative lies in the hands of the rival Koreas.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a key U.S. ally, were to meet Friday in the heavily militarized frontier between the Koreas. Moon will be looking to make some headway on the nuclear issue in advance of the Trump-Kim summit.

They're also expected to discuss ways to both improve relations and settle the 1950-53 Korean War, which was halted with an armistice, not a peace treaty.</s>GOYANG, South Korea (AP) – The Latest on the summit between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea (all times local):

North and South Korea have agreed to stop all hostile acts over “land, sea and air” that can cause military tensions and clashes, after a summit between their leaders at a border truce village.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced Friday that starting May 1 they will suspend all loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts the countries have been blaring at each other across their heavily-armed border. They will also dismantle broadcasting equipment.

The Koreas also agreed to stop flying propaganda leaflets across their border.

The countries also agreed to take steps to defuse the relatively frequent clashes around their western maritime border by designating the area as a “peace zone” and guarantee safe operations of fishermen from both countries.

The Koreas plan to hold military talks in May to further discuss reducing tensions.

The two Koreas have agreed for South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang sometime this autumn.

The agreement came after a historic summit between the leaders of the two Koreas at the border village of Panmunjom on Friday.

A joint statement didn’t say when Moon would visit Pyongyang. But it says Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet on a regular basis and exchange calls via a recently established hotline.

North and South Korea have agreed to open a permanent communication office in the North Korean town of Kaesong and resume temporary reunions between relatives separated by the 1950-53 Korean War following a historic summit between their leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in also said after their summit on Friday that the Koreas will seek to expand civilian exchanges and pursue joint sports and cultural events.

The family reunions are expected to take place around Aug. 15, an anniversary for both Koreas celebrating their peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule after the end of World War II.

Koreas plan to hold high-level talks and other negotiations to fulfill the agreements made at the summit.

North and South Korea say they will jointly push for talks with the United State and also potentially China to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War, which stopped in an armistice and left the Koreas still technically at war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced after their summit on Friday that the Koreas will push for three-way talks including Washington or four-way talks that also include Beijing on converting the armistice into a peace treaty and establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The Koreas said they hope the parties will be able to declare an official end to the war by the end of this year.

While President Donald Trump has given his “blessing” for the Koreas to discuss an end to the war, there can be no real solution without the involvement of Washington and other parties that fought in the war because South Korea wasn’t a direct signatory to the armistice that stopped the fighting.

The two Koreas have agreed to rid their peninsula of nuclear weapons but failed to provide any new specific measures how to achieve that.

A joint statement issued after their leaders’ talks Friday says the two Koreas confirmed their goal of achieving “a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through complete denuclearization.”

North Korea has placed its nukes up for negotiations. It has previously used the term “denuclearization” to say it can disarm only when the United States withdraws its 28,500 troops in South Korea.

The statement didn’t say what other specific disarmament steps North Korea would take.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are walking back to a building at a border truce village to resume their summit after talking privately for around 30 minutes at a nearby bridge.

Kim and Moon, after their afternoon session, are expected to jointly announce the outcome of their meeting.

The statement is expected to be announced in about an hour.

China has welcomed the summit between its ally North Korea and South Korea, saying it applauds the countries’ leaders for taking a “historic step” toward peace.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters at a briefing Friday that Beijing wishes that the meeting between the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will achieve a “positive result.”

Hua quoted the famed Chinese writer Lu Xun: “After all of the suffering, the brotherly friendship still exists; with a smile, let’s forget about the debt of gratitude and revenge.”

Hua says China looks forward to taking this summit as an opportunity to expand into a “new journey of long-term peace and stability on the peninsula.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are talking privately for more than 20 minutes, sitting on chairs at a blue bridge inside a border truce village where Moon is hosting Kim for a summit.

The leaders on Friday walked unaccompanied to the bridge for a private conversation before they are expected to resume the afternoon session of the summit. It isn’t immediately clear what is being said between the leaders.

South Korea’s presidential office said earlier Moon expressed satisfaction after the first round of talks with Kim at the border truce village of Panmunjom. The office says the leaders discussed the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that working level officials from both countries are working on a joint statement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have poured a mixture of soil and water from both countries onto a pine tree they planted at a truce village as a symbol of peace before resuming their highly anticipated summit.

Kim and Moon have also unveiled a stone plaque placed next to the tree that was engraved with a message saying “Peace and Prosperity Are Planted.”

The pine tree dates to 1953, the year the Korean War ended in an armistice. The soil and water were brought from the Koreas’ mountains and rivers.

The leaders then talked while walking unaccompanied on a nearby bridge before they are expected to resume the afternoon session of their summit at Panmunjom.

Kim at one point was seen waving away photographers as he and Moon continued their talks sitting on chairs placed at the bridge.

A Japanese Cabinet official says his government and the families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1980s and 1990s are closely watching the inter-Korean summit in hopes the two leaders discuss the issue.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in aremeeting Friday in the border village of Panmunjom.

Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s minister for the abduction issue, says he hopes progress will be made at an upcoming summit that Kim is expected to hold with President Donald Trump.

Tokyo has asked Seoul and Washington to press Kim to resolve the decades-old problem. Pyongyang has acknowledged abducting 13 Japanese decades ago. Five of them returned to Japan in 2002. Pyongyang says the eight others have died, but Japan believes they could be alive.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is welcoming the summit between the two Koreas but says he doesn’t expect any great breakthrough that might curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Johnson told reporters at NATO headquarters Friday, “I am very encouraged by what’s happening.”

He says: “I don’t think that anybody looking at the history of North Korea’s plans to develop a nuclear weapon would want to be over-optimistic at this point. But it is clearly good news that the two leaders are meeting. Absolutely.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are expected to jointly announce the outcome of their summit in a few hours.

South Korea’s presidential office said earlier Friday Moon expressed satisfaction after the first round of talks with Kim at the border truce village of Panmunjom. The office says the leaders discussed the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that working level officials from both countries are working on a joint statement.

The leaders will resume their meetings in the afternoon after planting a memorial tree. Moon’s office says he and Kim are expected to announce the results of their meeting before attending a dinner banquet scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

Moon’s office says the banquet will be also attended by the wives of Kim and Moon.

Also invited to the dinner are famous cultural figures from both countries, including the North’s Hyon Song Wol, the leader of Kim’s hand-picked Moranbong girl band, and South Korean pop star Cho Yong-pil.

Seoul says North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s wife will cross the border into South Korea to attend a dinner banquet after the Koreas’ summit talks at a border village.

Kim crossed the border into South Korea on Friday morning for talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the southern side of Panmunjom. Kim was accompanied by a group of top officials but his wife, Ri Sol Ju, was not present.

Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan says that Ri will cross the border and attend the banquet with Kim, Moon and Moon’s wife Kim Jung-sook later Friday.

Ri is a former singer with the North’s Unhasu Orchestra.

Seoul says the leaders of the two Koreas had “sincere, candid” talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”and other issues during their summit talks.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are holding the Koreas’ third-ever summit talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Friday.

Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan told reporters that the two leaders also discussed how to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula and improve ties between the rivals.

They are to meet again later Friday.

Yoon says the two Koreas are working on a joint statement to be issued after their one-day meeting.

North Koreans are reacting to news their leader is holding a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in with cautious expressions of support.

Though South Koreans and much of the world were able to watch some of the key summit events live, the only news available from North Korea’s state media well into the afternoon on Friday was a brief dispatch that leader Kim Jong Un had departed the capital to meet Moon inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides their nations.

State television was expected to report on the summit later in the day.

In the meantime, residents of the capital kept their comments short.

Pyongyang resident Jin Kum Il, referring to the ruling party’s daily newspaper, says: “I saw the news today in the Worker’s Daily about our respected supreme leader Kim Jong Un setting off to go to the North-South summit on the south side.”

He adds: “This meeting is coming after more than 10 years and I hope it’s successful.”

Another resident Kim Song Hui is noting Kim has made it clear this year he intends to repair ties with Seoul.

She told an AP Television News crew: “Our respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un already in his New Year’s address this year stressed the importance of improving relations between North and South.”

South Korean conservative activists have set fire to North Korean flags during a rally against the summit talks between the leaders of the two Koreas.

Hundreds of activists gathered near the border village of Panmunjom on Friday to protest the talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

They set on fire two paper North Korean flags with the images of Kim and his late father and grandfather.

They also chanted slogans including “Step down, Moon Jae-in!”

No major violence has been reported.

South Korea says North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described the country’s transport conditions as poor as he and South Korean President Moon Jae-in discussed Moon’s potential visit to the North.

Moon’ spokesman Yoon Young-chan says Kim’s comments came after Moon expressed a desire to travel across North Korea to visit Mount Paektu that touches the country’s border with China.

According to Yoon, Kim in response said such a trip might be currently uncomfortable for Moon because the country’s transport system was deficient. Yoon says Kim also said North Korean delegates who visited the South during February’s Winter Olympics also came back impressed with South Korea’s bullet train service.

Yoon says Moon in response said North Koreans would also be able to enjoy the South’s high-speed trains if the rivals improve relations and reconnect their rail networks across the border.

North Korean roads are often bumpy and poorly maintained. Kim earlier this month met with China’s ambassador and visited a hospital where Chinese tourists were being treated after a deadly bus crash killed 32 in North Korea.

South Korea says North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a reference to North Koreans who escaped from the country while discussing prospects of peace between the rivals in his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan says Kim mentioned the defectors among people who have high expectations for the summit to heal scars and improve relations between the rivals.

Yoon quoted Kim as saying: “We should value this opportunity so that the scars between the South and North could be healed.”

Yoon says Kim added: “The border line isn’t that high; it will eventually be erased if a lot of people pass over it.”

North Korea normally expresses anger toward defectors and often accuses South Korea of abducting or enticing its citizens to defect.

The North in 2016 accused the South of abducting 12 North Korean women who had worked at restaurant in China and demanded them to be sent back to the North. That was months before the North called a senior North Korean diplomat who defected to the South as “human scum.”

Around 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a reference to a South Korean island targeted by a North Korean artillery attack that killed four in 2010.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s senior spokesman said Kim said the residents of Yeonpyeong Island who have been living under the fear of North Korean artillery attacks and also families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War have high hopes for the inter-Korean talks to help heal past scars.

Moon called for more meetings between the leaders and said he wishes to travel in North Korea to visit Mount Paektu near the country’s border with China.

Kim said the trip under current conditions would be uncomfortable, but the North would improve its transportation networks should Moon decided to visit. Kim also said the North Korean delegation during their visit to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February came back impressed by the South’s bullet train services.

Moon in response said the people of both Koreas would be able to enjoy high-speed train services if relations improve and the countries connect their rail networks across borders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have finished the morning session of their summit at a border truce village.

Television showed bodyguards jogging beside Kim’s black limousine as it rolled back to the northern side of the Panmunjom where Kim and other North Korean officials participating in the summit are expected to have lunch.

The leaders plan to meet again in the afternoon at the southern side of the village for talks Seoul says are aimed at resolving the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has thanked South Korean President Moon Jae-in for greeting him at a “historic place” ahead of their meeting at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

At the historic moment when the two leaders shook hands across the Military Demarcation line that bisects the rivals, Kim said that his heart “keeps throbbing.”

Moon replied to Kim’s thanks by saying that the North Korean leader made a “very courageous decision” to come to the South.

The high-stakes summit is aimed at resolving the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has given his younger sister a place at the negotiating table for the first North-South Korea summit in more than a decade.

Kim Yo Jong has emerged as the most visible member of Kim Jong Un’s regime after her brother – since she became the first member of the ruling North Korean family to travel to the South in early February for the Olympics.

She was in Kim’s delegation as he walked across the line that divides the two Koreas on Friday morning and took a seat beside him as he started his first round of talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

The only other North Korean official present was former intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol, the top official in charge of relations with the South.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he’s ready for “heartfelt, sincere and honest” talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on pending issues and that the Koreas must not repeat the past where they were “unable to fulfill our agreements.”

Kim did not make any direct mention of the North Korean nuclear issue in the part of his talks with Moon that were shown on live television.

Kim also joked that he hoped Moon would enjoy North Korea’s famous cold noodles that will be brought to the banquet after the summit, saying it was difficult to bring the noodles from capital Pyongyang. He then turned to his sister sitting to his left and said “maybe I shouldn’t have said (Pyongyang) was far.”

Moon in response there were high expectations surrounding the inter-Korean summit and that they produce an agreement that would please the people of Koreas and also “every peace-loving person in the world.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has signed a guestbook with a message wishing for peace between the Koreas as he arrived for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Kim wrote in the guestbook: “New history starts from now, at the historic starting point of an era of peace.” Kim earlier stepped into the southern side of a border truce village of Panmunjom to become the first North Korean leader to set foot into the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The meeting between Kim and Moon is only the third-ever summit between the rivals who remain technically at war.

Seoul says the meeting will be focused on discussing ways for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and establishing a permanent peace regime in the Korean Peninsula.

The White House says it is hopeful the summit between the two Korean leaders will achieve progress toward peace.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossed over to the southern side of the world’s most heavily armed border Friday morning to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in. They shook hands and inspected an honor guard before later holding a closed-door discussion about Kim’s nuclear weapons.

The White House said in a statement that it is “hopeful that talks will achieve progress toward a future of peace and prosperity for the entire Korean Peninsula. … (and) looks forward to continuing robust discussions in preparation for the planned meeting between President Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made history by crossing over to the southern side of the world’s most heavily armed border to meet rival South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

It’s the first time a member of the Kim dynasty has set foot on southern soil since the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the latest bid to settle the world’s last Cold War standoff.

The overwhelming focus of the summit, the country’s third-ever, will be on North Korea’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Kim’s news agency said earlier Friday that the leader would “open-heartedly” discuss with Moon “all the issues arising in improving inter-Korean relations.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has left Seoul’s presidential palace for a high-stakes summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that will kick off a new round of nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang.

Moon on Friday briefly stepped out of his black limousine and cheerfully shook hands with hundreds of supporters who waved white South Korean flags and raised banners with messages including “Please Achieve Successful Denuclearization.”

Hundreds of members of the Korean Veterans Association arrived on buses from different parts of the nation hours earlier to send off Moon’s motorcade.

The meeting between Moon and Kim is just the third summit between the rivals since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea’s state media reports that leader Kim Jong Un has left Pyongyang for the North-South summit meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

A report by the North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim would “open-heartedly”‘discuss with Moon “all the issues arising in improving inter-Korean relations and achieving peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean peninsula.”

The report called the summit on Friday “historic” and noted that it would be held on the south side of the Demilitarized Zone, a first for Kim.

It also said that after the talks Kim will plant a memorial tree with Moon, make public the results of the talks and attend a dinner hosted by Moon before returning to Pyongyang.</s>While much of the world watched the historic meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea as it happened this week, citizens of the nation arguably most impacted by the summit remained in the dark.

Multiple sources reported that Korean Central Television, North Korea’s state news agency, aired historical programming, landscapes and the national flag as leader Kim Jong Un crossed the border to the south Friday.

The diplomatic gesture led to talks between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in of signing a treaty that would officially end a war that has technically continued since an armistice reached between the two countries more than 60 years ago.

It also marked the first time during that period that a North Korean leader stepped into South Korea to meet with that nation’s president.

Despite the potentially dramatic implications the meeting could have for those living under Kim’s oppressive regime, the news received barely a mention on the government-controlled airwaves within North Korea.

According to analysts who interpret the flow of information within the hermit nation, it is not surprising there would be no live coverage of the leader’s monumental trip.

The Lowy Institute’s international security director told Business Insider that state TV must depict Kim in a certain way, so the potential of embarrassment associated with live coverage means it is rarely an option.

“North Korean media will cut and splice to show Kim in the most favorable light, and ideally in a superior position to his southern counterpart,” Euan Graham said.

He said he was not surprised to find that North Korea shunned a live broadcast, adding that “it was the same for the Winter Olympics.”

Much of the current emphasis on diplomacy traces back to unprecedented international outreach by the North Korean regime ahead of the recent Olympic games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

While a delegation of athletes, dignitaries and others from the north made appearances aired around the world, analysts say North Koreans only saw a sanitized version on state-run television.

According to one Wilson Center scholar who has served as a North Korean correspondent for the Associated Press, the primary exception to a ban on live broadcasts involves highly orchestrated events meant to deliver a specific message.

“They don’t like the unpredictability of live broadcasts, except for events that are completely scripted, like military parades,” said Jean H. Lee.

Though they did not watch live, North Koreans did reportedly hear about the important meeting via state TV.

Hazel Smith of SOAS University of London has lived in North Korea and continues to monitor life in the secretive nation.

“I’m not surprised it’s not been shown live, although it has been announced that it was going to happen,” she said.

Like other experts, Smith described an ongoing effort by state media to “control the message so they will show the bits that enhance the message they want to get across to their people.”

In addition to mitigating the risk of embarrassment, she said Kim’s regime will want to present the leader as “in charge.”

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>While much of the world watched the historic meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea as it happened this week, citizens of the nation arguably most impacted by the summit remained in the dark.

Multiple sources reported that Korean Central Television, North Korea’s state news agency, aired historical programming, landscapes and the national flag as leader Kim Jong Un crossed the border to the south Friday.

The diplomatic gesture led to talks between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in of signing a treaty that would officially end a war that has technically continued since an armistice reached between the two countries more than 60 years ago.

It also marked the first time during that period that a North Korean leader stepped into South Korea to meet with that nation’s president.

Despite the potentially dramatic implications the meeting could have for those living under Kim’s oppressive regime, the news received barely a mention on the government-controlled airwaves within North Korea.

According to analysts who interpret the flow of information within the hermit nation, it is not surprising there would be no live coverage of the leader’s monumental trip.

The Lowy Institute’s international security director told Business Insider that state TV must depict Kim in a certain way, so the potential of embarrassment associated with live coverage means it is rarely an option.

“North Korean media will cut and splice to show Kim in the most favorable light, and ideally in a superior position to his southern counterpart,” Euan Graham said.

He said he was not surprised to find that North Korea shunned a live broadcast, adding that “it was the same for the Winter Olympics.”

Much of the current emphasis on diplomacy traces back to unprecedented international outreach by the North Korean regime ahead of the recent Olympic games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

While a delegation of athletes, dignitaries and others from the north made appearances aired around the world, analysts say North Koreans only saw a sanitized version on state-run television.

According to one Wilson Center scholar who has served as a North Korean correspondent for the Associated Press, the primary exception to a ban on live broadcasts involves highly orchestrated events meant to deliver a specific message.

“They don’t like the unpredictability of live broadcasts, except for events that are completely scripted, like military parades,” said Jean H. Lee.

Though they did not watch live, North Koreans did reportedly hear about the important meeting via state TV.

Hazel Smith of SOAS University of London has lived in North Korea and continues to monitor life in the secretive nation.

“I’m not surprised it’s not been shown live, although it has been announced that it was going to happen,” she said.

Like other experts, Smith described an ongoing effort by state media to “control the message so they will show the bits that enhance the message they want to get across to their people.”

In addition to mitigating the risk of embarrassment, she said Kim’s regime will want to present the leader as “in charge.”

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>The presidents of North Korea and South Korea are scheduled to meet this Friday, in a prelude to a summit in the works between North Korea's Kim Jong Un and President Trump to talk about North Korea's nuclear program.

The summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will be the third time the countries' top leaders have met since the Korean War. Trump's meeting with Kim is expected to occur next month.

But there's reason for caution when it comes to expectations about North Korea, warns Jean Lee, director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Kim's understanding of "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula — a key U.S. goal — may be very different from what President Trump expects, says Lee, the former Pyongyang bureau chief of the Associated Press.



On whether North Korea has agreed to denuclearization

I think President Trump is in for a rude surprise if he thinks that he's going to come to this summit with Kim Jong Un and that Kim Jong Un is going to say, "Sure, I'll hand over my nuclear weapons" — because that is certainly not the case.

What Kim Jong Un has said is that he supports this concept of a nuclear-free world and that he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so the U.S. may think that that means forcing or requiring North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons without anything from the U.S. side. But North Korea has very consistently said that that, for them, means that the United States also has to give up its nuclear umbrella over the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region.

On whether South Korea's agenda dovetails with what the U.S. is seeking from North Korea

This [inter-Korean] summit will roll out differently, I think, than the anticipated summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un because the North and South Koreans have been preparing for it very methodically, step by step. What we will see is a strong show of unity between the two Korean leaders. This is something that will play well in Pyongyang — for Kim Jong Un to show that he's got the South Korean leader on his side.

The South Koreans will certainly want to discuss denuclearization and discuss the upcoming summit with Donald Trump, and perhaps try to pave the way and lay the groundwork for that summit. They will most likely come up with some agreements at this meeting, perhaps some agreement on reducing the military tensions along the [Demilitarized Zone] and also perhaps some agreement on restarting the family reunions of those Koreans on both sides of the DMZ who hadn't seen each other in more than 65, 70 years.

On what Kim Jong Un hopes to gain from the summit with South Korea

You know, when you tell your people that they are under threat from an outside force or that they are at risk of being attacked, for any country, that brings the people together. And that's what ... North Korea has been doing to its people, is telling them, "We are under threat, we are under attack, and so we need to come together." But the big thing that Kim Jong Un wants is to have a resolution of that peace treaty. He wants something big to celebrate this year. And the big goal for him would be to somehow negotiate a peace treaty to bring that Korean War to an end.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Moon and Kim agree to officially end the Korean War and the Korean conflict overall. Kim becomes the first North Korean leader to cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone since the war.