South Korean President Moon Jae In was warmly welcomed Tuesday as he became the country's third president to visit Pyongyang, amid drastic changes in the situation surrounding efforts to denuclearize North Korea since the beginning of this year.

A welcoming mood prevailed in the North Korean capital, with thousands of citizens lining the streets holding pom-poms and flags as Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un passed by waving from the rear of an open-backed limousine.


[Pyeongyang Press Corps]

Earlier at Pyongyang airport, Moon and his wife Kim Jung Sook were greeted as they disembarked from their plane by Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju on the tarmac. The two leaders hugged and shook hands at the foot of the boarding ramp.

Nearby, thousands of North Korean men in suits and women wearing high-waisted, long-skirted traditional dresses waved pom-poms, North Korean flags and unified Korean flags.

Moon, clad in a dark business suit and a maroon and gray-striped tie, and his wife received bouquets of flowers from a boy and a girl in front of a military band. Kim Jong Un wore his trademark black Mao-style suit.

They inspected a military honor guard before departing.

The South Korean president arrived at the airport around 9:50 a.m., less than an hour after leaving Seoul. Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister and close aide, and North Korea's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam were also present at the airport.

The welcoming ceremony was broadcast live by the Pyeongyang Press Corps, a group composed of South Korean reporters and photographers, underlining a recent thaw in inter-Korean relations.

In Pyongyang in the morning, many North Koreans awaited Moon's arrival, with traffic restrictions put in place in the heart of the capital.

In the afternoon, the wives of the two leaders visited a pediatric hospital and engaged in music activities with children there, Seoul said.


(At Panmunjeom in April)
[Korea Summit Press Pool]

Moon, who took office in May 2017, is the first foreign head of state or government to enter Pyongyang since Kim Jong Un became the nation's supreme leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011.

A former human rights lawyer, Moon is known as a dove on North Korea matters. During his stay in Pyongyang through Thursday, Moon is scheduled to hold talks with Kim Jong Un to exchange views on nuclear disarmament and military hostilities on the divided peninsula.

The 65-year-old South Korean president was born on Geoje Island in South Gyeongsang Province in 1953 to poor parents who were refugees from North Korea.

As a soldier, he served at the border village of Panmunjeom and was involved in an operation in the wake of the Ax Murder Incident in 1976, in which North Korean guards killed two U.S. officers who were cutting down a poplar tree in the Demilitarized Zone.

The two Koreas previously held summits in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, between Kim Jong Il and the late South Korean presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun. As a chief aide to Roh, Moon visited North Korea.

Inter-Korean relations have been significantly improving since Kim Jong Un pledged in his New Year's address on Jan. 1 that he would prepare for his country's participation in the Feb. 9-25 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics hosted by the South.

Moon and Kim Jong Un have already met twice this year on April 27 and May 26. At their first summit, the Panmunjeom Declaration was issued calling for "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and efforts to declare a formal end to the 1950-1953 Korean War.

But with lingering skepticism about whether North Korea intends to abandon its nuclear weapons, Kim Jong Un's negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump have sputtered since their historic meeting on June 12 in Singapore.

Moon has expressed willingness to work as a "broker" between Washington and Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un, who is believed to be eager to obtain security guarantees from the United States by ending the Korean War, has promoted diplomacy since early this year by holding summit talks with major nations' leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the war, U.S.-led multilateral forces fought alongside South Korea against the North, which was supported by China and the Soviet Union. Hostilities ceased with an armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953, by the U.N. Command, North Korea and China.


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