Kim crossed the border into South Korea for their historic face-to-face talks.
Smiling and holding hands, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met at the heavily fortified demilitarised zone between the countries on Friday in the first summit for the two Koreas in over a decade.

Scenes of Moon and Kim joking and walking together marked a striking contrast to last year's barrage of North Korean missile tests and its largest ever nuclear test that led to sweeping international sanctions and fears of a fresh conflict on the Korean peninsula.

The dramatic meeting, aimed at ending their decades-long conflict, comes weeks before Kim is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

"We are at a starting line today, where a new history of peace, prosperity and inter-Korean relations is being written," Kim said before the two Korean leaders and top aides began talks at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

During their private meeting, Kim told Moon he came to the summit to end the history of conflict and joked he was sorry for keeping Moon up with his late night missile tests, a South Korean official said.

Kim told Moon he would be willing to visit the presidential Blue House in Seoul, and wanted to meet "more often" in the future, the official said.

After talks lasting more than an hour and a half behind closed doors, Kim was driven back to the North side just before noon in a black limousine flanked by guards who ran alongside. Crossing the border, the vehicle had to drive across a lawn, as there is not a road linking the two sides at that spot.

Following lunch, the two leaders are scheduled to plant a memorial tree before resuming their meeting, and then finishing the evening with dinner and a film.

Just days before the summit, Kim said North Korea would suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests and dismantle its only known nuclear test site.

But there is widespread skepticism about whether Kim is ready to abandon the nuclear arsenal his country has defended and developed for decades as what it says is a necessary deterrent against U.S. invasion.