SEOUL, May 26 (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday to discuss Kim's possible upcoming summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, the South said, the second inter-Korean summit in as many months.

Moon and Kim met just north of the heavily militarised border in the afternoon to exchange views to pave way for a summit between North Korea and the United States, South Korea's presidential office said.

Moon will announce the outcome of his two-hour meeting with Kim on Sunday morning, officials aid. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Soyoung Kim Editing by Alison Williams) </s> The President of the United States Donald Trump reportedly plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on February 27-28.

The meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is planned to take place in Vietnam, Politico reported.

Trump is reportedly expected to formally announce details of his second summit with Kim during his State of the Union address to Congress later on Tuesday night.

Earlier, the US State Department said in a press release that US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was about to travel to Pyongyang on February 6 for talks to prepare for the second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

The long-standing tensions on the Korean Peninsula started to ease after Kim Jong-un committed to denuclearization of Korean peninsula and held historic summits with US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. </s> South Korean President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their meeting at the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in wants to create a Northeast Asian railroad community with North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia, Yonhap News reported on Wednesday.

Speaking at an event marking his country's independence from Japanese rule, Moon said such a "community" could eventually herald the launch of a "multilateral security system" in the region, according to the report.

"This community will lead to an energy bloc and economic bloc in Northeast Asia by expanding our economic area to the northern continent and becoming the foundation of co-existence and prosperity in Northeast Asia," Moon projected, according to Yonhap.

The president's administration will seek to link railways and roads with the North before year-end, Yonhap said.

The initiative is one of many efforts that Seoul is undertaking to strengthen peace in Northeast Asia following June's milestone U.S.-North Korea summit. Since then, the reclusive regime has dismantled some missile engine testing facilities, but many question leader Kim Jong Un's willingness to deliver on the denuclearization promise he made to President Donald Trump.

Moon also called for broad energy and economic cooperation with the North on Wednesday, stressing his goal to politically unify both countries. "True liberation" will only be achieved when the two neighbors establish a lasting peace and economic relations, the head of state was quoted as saying.

The South Korean leader indicated that he will soon visit Pyongyang for a third bilateral summit with Kim. In May, the duo held their official second meeting at the border village of Panmunjom following an earlier summit in April.

For more on Moon's Wednesday speech, see Yonhap's full report. </s> SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday his planned third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month would be another step towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and an end to the 1950-53 Korean War.

Moon said he hoped for speedy progress in talks between North Korea and the United States to achieve Pyongyang’s complete denuclearization.

He also said he aimed to begin construction of an inter-Korean railway this year, proposing an East Asian railroad community by including the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia. His remarks were made in a speech marking the 73rd anniversary of the peninsula’s liberation from Japanese rule from 1910-45. </s> South Korean President Moon Jae-In (R) and U.S. President Donald Trump (L) walk towards a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential Blue House on November 7, 2017 in Seoul, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
• South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday a three-way summit with North Korea and the United States is possible.
• Moon said talks should aim for an end to the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula.
• President Donald Trump has said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of May.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday a three-way summit with North Korea and the United States is possible and that talks should aim for an end to the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula.

Moon is planning a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month after a flurry of diplomatic activity in Asia, Europe and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has also said he would meet Kim by the end of May.

"A North Korea-U.S. summit would be a historic event in itself following an inter-Korean summit," Moon said at the presidential Blue House in Seoul after a preparatory meeting for the inter-Korean summit.

"Depending on the location, it could be even more dramatic. And depending on progress, it may lead to a three-way summit between the South, North and the United States," he said.

Seoul officials are considering the border truce village of Panmunjom, where Moon and Kim are set for a one-day meeting, as the venue for talks between not only Kim and Moon but also a possible three-way meeting.

A Blue House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moon did not specifically refer to Panmunjom or that a three-way summit had been discussed with Washington before the president spoke.

The rush of recent diplomatic contacts began in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea last month and helped ease tensions on the Korean peninsula caused by North Korea's pursuit of its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

South Korea wants to hold high-level talks with North Korea on March 29 to discuss a date and agenda for the inter-Korean summit and make a formal request to the North on Thursday, Moon's presidential office said.

North and South Korean officials should be able to agree on when the summit between Moon and Kim will take place once the officials from both sides meet this month, the Blue House official said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets a member of the special delegation of South Korea's President at a dinner in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 6, 2018. KCNA

Moon said the series of summits should aim for a "complete end" to the nuclear and peace issues on the Korean peninsula.

He said he has a "clear goal and vision", which is for the establishment of a lasting peace to replace the ceasefire signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. It also includes the normalization of North Korea-U.S. relations, the development of inter-Korean ties, and economic cooperation involving Pyongyang and Washington, he said.

However, the United States must also add its guarantee in order for peace to come about, Moon said.

"Whether the two Koreas live together or separately, we have to make it in a way that they prosper together and in peace, without interfering or causing damage to each other," Moon said.

The Blue House official said this could mean stopping propaganda broadcasts at the border that are commonly blasted from both sides over loudspeakers. The official could not say whether "interference" also referred to criticism over widely recognized human rights violations in North Korea.

South Korea and the United States will resume joint military drills next month, although the exercises are expected to overlap with the summit between the two Koreas.

Seoul and Washington delayed the annual drills until after the Winter Olympics, helping to foster conditions for a restart of such talks.

North Korea regularly denounces the drills as preparation for war but a South Korean special envoy has said Kim understood that the allies must continue their "routine" exercises. That exchange has not been confirmed.

The North's official KCNA news agency said on Wednesday a "dramatic atmosphere for reconciliation" had been created in cross-border ties and there had also been a sign of change in North Korea-U.S. relations.

That was "thanks to the proactive measure and peace-loving proposal" made by Pyongyang, not Trump's campaign to put maximum pressure on the country, KCNA said in a commentary.

The Blue House official also said earlier on Wednesday South Korea was in discussions with China and Japan for a three-way summit in Tokyo in early May. The three countries have not held such a meeting since November 2015, with relations soured by historical and territorial tensions. </s> SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a surprise meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday to ensure a summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump goes off successfully, South Korean officials said.

It was the clearest sign yet that the on-again off-again summit between Trump and Kim is likely to be held as initially agreed, in Singapore on June 12.

The unannounced meeting at the Panmunjom border village between Moon and Kim came a month after they held the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade at the same venue and declared they would toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

“The two leaders candidly exchanged views about making the North Korea-U.S. summit a successful one and about implementing the Panmunjom Declaration,” South Korea’s presidential spokesman said in a statement.

Moon, who returned to Seoul earlier this week after a meeting with Trump, will announce details of the meeting with Kim on Sunday morning.

Trump said on Friday that Washington was having “productive talks” with Pyongyang about reinstating the June 12 meeting, just a day after cancelling it.

Politico magazine reported that an advance team of 30 White House and State Department officials was preparing to leave for Singapore later this weekend.

Reuters reported earlier this week the team was scheduled to discuss the agenda and logistics for the summit with North Korean officials. The delegation was to include White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin and deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Trump said in a Twitter post late on Friday: “We are having very productive talks about reinstating the Summit which, if it does happen, will likely remain in Singapore on the same date, June 12th., and, if necessary, will be extended beyond that date.”

Trump had earlier indicated the summit could be salvaged after welcoming a conciliatory statement from North Korea saying it remained open to talks.

“It was a very nice statement they put out,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’ll see what happens - it could even be the 12th.”

“We’re talking to them now. They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it,” he said.

The comments came just a day after Trump canceled the meeting, citing Pyongyang’s “open hostility.”

After years of tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, Kim and Trump agreed this month to hold what would be the first meeting between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader. The plan followed months of war threats and insults between the leaders over North Korea’s development of missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Trump scrapped the meeting in a letter to Kim on Thursday after repeated threats by North Korea to pull out over what it saw as confrontational remarks by U.S. officials demanding unilateral disarmament. Trump cited North Korean hostility in cancelling the summit.

In Pyongyang, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said North Korea’s criticisms had been a reaction to American rhetoric and that current antagonism showed “the urgent necessity” for the summit.

He said North Korea regretted Trump’s decision to cancel and remained open to resolving issues “regardless of ways, at any time.”

Kim Kye Gwan said North Korea had appreciated Trump having made the bold decision to work toward a summit.

“We even inwardly hoped that what is called ‘Trump formula’ would help clear both sides of their worries and comply with the requirements of our side and would be a wise way of substantial effect for settling the issue,” he said.

North Korea also went ahead with a plan to destroy its only known nuclear site on Thursday, the most concrete action yet since pledging to cease all nuclear and long-range missile tests last month.

Dozens of international journalists left North Korea on Saturday after observing the demolition of the underground tunnels in Punggye-ri, where all of the North’s six nuclear tests were conducted including its latest and largest in September.

Trump’s latest about-face sent officials scrambling in Washington. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters diplomats were “still at work” and said Trump had just sent a note out on the summit, which could be back on “if our diplomats can pull it off.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Katina Adams declined to give details of any diplomatic contacts but said: “As the president said in his letter to Chairman Kim, dialogue between the two is the only dialogue that matters. If North Korea is serious, then we look forward to hearing from them at the highest levels.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters Trump did not want a meeting that was “just a political stunt.”

“He wants to get something that’s a long-lasting and an actual real solution. And if they are ready to do that then ... we’re certainly ready to have those conversations,” she said. </s> SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the second time in a month on Saturday to discuss carrying out the peace commitments they reached in their first summit and Kim's potential meeting with President Donald Trump, Moon's office said.

South Korean presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said Moon will reveal the outcome of his surprise meeting with Kim on Sunday. The presidential Blue House did not immediately provide more details.

The meeting at a border truce village came hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a summit between Trump and Kim following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw Trump cancel the highly anticipated meeting before saying it's potentially back on. Trump later tweeted that the summit, if it does happen, will likely take place on June 12 in Singapore as originally planned.

In their first summit in April, Kim and Moon announced vague aspirations for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and permanent peace, which Seoul has tried to sell as a meaningful breakthrough to set up the summit with Trump.

But relations between the rival Koreas chilled in recent weeks, with North Korea canceling a high-level meeting with Seoul over South Korea's participation in regular military exercises with the United States and insisting that it will not return to talks unless its grievances are resolved.

South Korea, which brokered the talks between Washington and Pyongyang, was caught off guard by Trump's abrupt cancellation of the summit in which he cited hostility in recent North Korean comments. Moon said Trump's decision left him "perplexed" and was "very regrettable." He urged Washington and Pyongyang to resolve their differences through "more direct and closer dialogue between their leaders."

Trump's back-and-forth over his summit plans with Kim has exposed the fragility of Seoul as an intermediary. It fanned fears in South Korea that the country may lose its voice between a rival intent on driving a wedge between Washington and Seoul and an American president who thinks less of the traditional alliance with Seoul than his predecessors.

Trump's decision to pull out of the summit with Kim came just days after he hosted Moon in a White House meeting where he openly cast doubts on the Singapore meeting but offered no support for continued inter-Korean progress, essentially ignoring the North's recent attempts to coerce the South.

In his letter to Kim, Trump objected specifically to a statement from senior North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui. She referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a "political dummy" for his earlier comments on North Korea and said it was up to the Americans whether they would "meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown."

North Korea issued an unusually restrained and diplomatic response to Trump, saying it's still willing to sit for talks with the United States "at any time, (in) any format."

"The first meeting would not solve all, but solving even one at a time in a phased way would make the relations get better rather than making them get worse," North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, which mainly targets external audience.

Notably, the statement did not appear in Saturday's edition of Rodong Sinmun, the official mouthpiece of the North's ruling party that's widely read by North Koreans.

The newspaper instead focused on Kim Jong Un's visit to the coastal town of Wonsan to inspect the construction of a beachfront tourist complex. Kim ordered the complex to be finished by April 15 next year to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Un's comments published by the newspaper did not include any mention of his potential meeting with Trump.

Analysts say Kim's diplomatic outreach in recent months after a flurry of nuclear and missile tests in 2017 indicates he is eager for sanctions relief to build his economy and the international legitimacy the summit with Trump would provide. But there's also skepticism whether Kim will ever agree to fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he likely sees as his only guarantee of survival.

Comments in North Korea's state media indicate Kim sees any meeting with Trump as an arms control negotiation between nuclear states, rather than a process to surrender his nukes. The North has said it will refuse to participate in talks where it would be unilaterally pressured to give up its nukes. </s> SEOUL: Top US, South Korean and Japanese officials have discussed how to achieve a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula ahead of upcoming inter-Korean and US-North Korean summit talks. Seoul has said previously that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to hold summit talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April. Seoul says Kim proposed meeting with President Donald Trump , and Trump agreed to him by the end of May.The developments have raised hopes for a potential breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear crisis.US National Security Adviser HR McMaster met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in San Francisco for talks over the weekend on denuclearization and the summit talks.South Korea's presidential office says the three agreed to maintain close trilateral cooperation. </s> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have met for the second time in a month to discuss peace commitments they reached in their first summit.

They also talked about Mr Kim's potential meeting with President Donald Trump next month.

South Korea's presidential office said Mr Moon will personally announce the outcome of Saturday's summit with Mr Kim on Sunday.

The presidential Blue House did not immediately provide more details.

The meeting at a border truce village came hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a summit between President Trump and Mr Kim.

This was following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw the US leader cancel the highly anticipated meeting, before saying it is potentially back on.

Trump later tweeted that the summit, if it does happen, will likely take place on June 12 in Singapore as originally planned.

In their first summit in April, Kim and Moon announced vague aspirations for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and permanent peace, which Seoul has tried to sell as a meaningful breakthrough to set up the summit with Trump.

But relations between the rival Koreas chilled in recent weeks, with North Korea canceling a high-level meeting with Seoul over South Korea's participation in regular military exercises with the United States.

It insisted that it will not return to talks unless its grievances are resolved.

South Korea, which brokered the talks between Washington and Pyongyang, was caught off guard by Trump's abrupt cancellation of the summit in which he cited hostility in recent North Korean comments.

Moon said Trump's decision left him 'perplexed' and was 'very regrettable.' He urged Washington and Pyongyang to resolve their differences through 'more direct and closer dialogue between their leaders.'

Trump's back-and-forth over his summit plans with Kim has exposed the fragility of Seoul as an intermediary.

It fanned fears in South Korea that the country may lose its voice between a rival intent on driving a wedge between Washington and Seoul and an American president who thinks less of the traditional alliance with Seoul than his predecessors.

Trump's decision to pull out of the summit with Kim came just days after he hosted Moon in a White House meeting where he openly cast doubts on the Singapore meeting but offered no support for continued inter-Korean progress, essentially ignoring the North's recent attempts to coerce the South.

In his letter to Kim, Trump objected specifically to a statement from senior North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui.

She referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a 'political dummy' for his earlier comments on North Korea and said it was up to the Americans whether they would 'meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.'

North Korea issued an unusually restrained and diplomatic response to Trump, saying it's still willing to sit for talks with the United States 'at any time, (in) any format.'

'The first meeting would not solve all, but solving even one at a time in a phased way would make the relations get better rather than making them get worse,' North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, which mainly targets external audience.

Analysts say Kim's diplomatic outreach in recent months after a flurry of nuclear and missile tests in 2017 indicates he is eager for sanctions relief to build his economy and the international legitimacy the summit with Trump would provide.

But there's also skepticism whether Kim will ever agree to fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he likely sees as his only guarantee of survival.

Comments in North Korea's state media indicate Kim sees any meeting with Trump as an arms control negotiation between nuclear states, rather than a process to surrender his nukes.

The North has said it will refuse to participate in talks where it would be unilaterally pressured to give up its nukes.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the second time in recent months at the peace village on the Northern side to discuss the topic of the June 12 summit in Singapore between the U.S. and North Korea, which was cancelled then left with the possibility of happening the day after.