Historic meeting: Kim Jong-un agrees to summit with South Korean president, after spending hours with Seoul’s envoys

Kim Jong-un has agreed to hold a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, after the North Korean leader spent more than four hours with Moon’s special envoys late Monday in an historic first meeting with officials from south of the border.

The envoys delivered Moon’s intention to hold the summit with Kim, who took power in late 2011, and the two Koreas made a “satisfactory agreement” on the proposal, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said. 

“Hearing the intention of President Moon Jae-in for a summit from the special envoy of the south side, he [Kim Jong-un] exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim “gave the important instruction to the relevant field to rapidly take practical steps for it,” KCNA added, according to a translation by Japan’s Kyodo news agency.

The meeting at the headquarters of the Workers’ Party in Pyongyang was also attended by Kim’s wife, sister and other North Korean officials.

The heads of South Korea’s security and intelligence services were in the North Korean capital to persuade Kim to start talks with the US on denuclearisation and stave off a potential conflict over his nuclear programme.