Kim Jong-un greets Moon Jae-in as inter-Korean summit starts

Kim Jong-un has greeted the South Korean president to cheers from crowds assembled at North Korea’s Pyongyang airport as the pair begin their third summit.

The North Korean leader emerged from the airport building to raucous cheering and walked up to President Moon Jae-in. The two leaders embraced and flashed wide smiles.

The highly choreographed meeting – set to dramatic music provided by a military band – opened a three-day summit in Pyongyang between the leaders of the two Koreas. Moon is hoping to mediate an impasse between the United states and the North over the latter’s nuclear weapons programme.

Kim is likely looking for greater economic cooperation with the South and seeking sanctions relief as well as a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended in an armistice.

Kim was accompanied at the airport by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and his sister and close adviser Kim Yo-jong. Moon and Kim Jong-un also reviewed a North Korean honour guard of soldiers before a loudly cheering crowd of North Korean men in dark suits and women wearing hanbok – Korean national dress. They hoisted North Korean flags, flowers and flags depicting a unified Korean peninsula in blue against a white background.

The crowd appeared bored as they waited but then seemed almost hysterical at the sight of Kim. The entire ceremony lasted about 15 minutes before Moon and Kim drove off in a caravan of black cars and the crowd quickly returned to its previously calm state.

Later on the pair arrived at a guesthouse in Pyongyang where they were expected to have talks over lunch.

Kim and Moon arrived at the Paekhwawon State Guesthouse in a black Mercedes convertible and were seen talking and adjusting their hair before stepping out of the backseat.

North Korea’s nuclear programme is at the top of Moon’s agenda as he tries to get Kim to provide details on his previous commitment to the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. Negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have stalled since Kim met Donald Trump in Singapore in June, with Kim only offering vague pronouncements and little substance.