PYONGYANG, North Korea-South Korean President Moon Jae-in began his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday with possibly his hardest mission to date-brokering some kind of compromise to keep North Korea's talks with Washington from imploding and pushing ahead with his own plans to expand economic cooperation and bring a stable peace to the Korean Peninsula.
Kim gave the South Korean president an exceedingly warm welcome, meeting him and his wife at Pyongyang's airport-itself a very unusual gesture-then riding into town with Moon in an open limousine through streets lined with crowds of North Koreans, who cheered and waved the flag of their country and a blue-and-white flag that symbolizes Korean unity.
The made-for-television welcome is par for the course for Moon's summits with Kim.
Hours after his arrival, Moon began an official summit with Kim at the ruling Workers' Party headquarters. The two were joined by two of their top deputies-spy chief Suh Hoon and presidential security director Chung Eui-yong for Moon, and Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and senior Workers' Party official Kim Yong Chol for the North Korean leader, according to Moon's office.
At the start of their meeting, Kim thanked Moon for brokering a June summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
"It's not too much to say that it's Moon's efforts that arranged a historic North Korea-U.S. summit. Because of that, the regional political situation has been stabilized and more progress on North Korea-U.S. ties is expected," Kim said, according to South Korean media pool reports and Moon's office.
Moon responded by expressing his own thanks to Kim for making a "bold decision" in a New Year's speech to open a new era of detente and send a delegation to the South Korean Winter Olympics in February.
Even though tens of thousands of people had witnessed Moon's drive into the city with their leader, the arrival was not broadcast or even mentioned on the evening and night news on North Korea's central television network. The North often holds off reporting stories until it has had time to review and edit the video for maximum propaganda impact.
The results of the talks weren't immediately available. Seoul officials earlier said they would focus on how to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, decrease military tensions along their border and improve overall ties.