South Korean President Moon Jae In and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a surprise meeting on Saturday at the truce village of Panmunjeom, speaking face-to-face for the second time in a month of how to bring peace to the region, after U.S. President Donald Trump revived hopes of a summit with Kim.

Moon and Kim held talks at the truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and "candidly" discussed ways to implement the declaration issued after their historic first meeting on April 27, and how to have a "successful" North Korea-U.S. summit, South Korea's presidential office said.

The presidential office said Moon will announce the outcome of his second meeting with Kim on Sunday at 10 a.m.

(Moon Jae In, 2nd from left, and Kim Jong Un, right, meet at Panmunjeom on Saturday)
[Photo courtesy of South Korea's presidential office]

At their first meeting on April 27, held at the southern side of the border, Moon and Kim agreed to pursue "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to work toward a formal end to the 1950-1953 Korean War.

That was the first inter-Korean summit in over a decade -- and only the third ever. The two countries' leaders had held direct talks just twice before, in 2000 and 2007.

The second Moon-Kim meeting, held just days after Trump canceled his planned June 12 summit with Kim in Singapore, was only announced after it had finished.

It took place at Tongilgak, a building on the North Korean side of Panmunjeom, and the presidential office released photos of the two leaders together, including one of them sharing a warm embrace.

Moon is the only South Korean president to have held a meeting twice with a North Korean leader.

Moon had served as a broker between Pyongyang and Washington in talks over a potential Kim-Trump summit, resulting in plans for the first ever summit between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

(Kim and Moon hug each other at Panmunjeom on Saturday)
[Photo courtesy of South Korea's presidential office]

But on Thursday, only two days after meeting with Moon in Washington, Trump abruptly canceled the planned summit with Kim in Singapore. The decision came as a shock to the South Korean leader, who said, "I am very perplexed and it is very regrettable."

In his letter to Kim, Trump said the "tremendous anger and open hostility" recently shown by North Korea led him to conclude that it was not the appropriate time to meet.

But then Trump suggested Friday that the meeting with Kim could still happen on June 12.

"We'll see what happens. It could even be the 12th," Trump told reporters at the White House. "We're talking to them now. They very much want to do it. We'd like to do it."

Trump subsequently wrote on Twitter that the two countries were having "very productive talks" and added that if the summit happens, it will likely still be in Singapore on the initially scheduled date, and could be extended if necessary.

On Saturday, the White House said a team of U.S. officials will leave for Singapore as initially scheduled to prepare for a possible summit.

Trump sent mixed messages after North Korea said it remains open to talking with the United States, even after the abrupt cancellation.

"We would like to make known to the U.S. side once again that we have the intent to sit with the U.S. side to solve problem regardless of ways at any time," Kim Kye Gwan, a vice foreign minister, said in a statement carried by the country's official media on Friday.

"We remain unchanged in our goal and will to do everything we could for peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and humankind," he said. "We, broad-minded and open all the time, have the willingness to offer the U.S. side time and opportunity."

The reaction from North Korea's long-serving point man on nuclear issues was very restrained, especially as compared to the belligerent statements issued earlier this month by him and another senior Foreign Ministry official.