ROK president's envoys meet with DPRK leader for 4 hours: Blue House

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea's President Moon Jae-in's special envoys met with Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for over four hours in Pyongyang, the Blue House of the ROK said Tuesday.

Presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing that the ROK special delegation to the DPRK had a meeting and a dinner with Kim from 6:00 pm local time (0900 GMT) to 10:12 pm on Monday.

The meeting and dinner were conducted at the main building of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). It marked the first time that the ROK officials visited the WPK's main building, the spokesman said.

Attending the meeting, held before the dinner, were Kim Yong-chol, vice-chairman of the WPK Central Committee, and Kim Yo-jong, the DPRK leader's younger sister and first vice director of the WPK Central Committee, as well as the DPRK leader.

From the ROK side, Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for Moon who led the special delegation, attended the meeting together with National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Suh Hoon, Vice-Unification Minister Chung Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The ROK special emissaries had a meeting with the DPRK leader three hours after arriving in the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang.

An unnamed Blue House official told local reporters that the meeting and dinner between Kim and the emissaries bore fruits, which were "not disappointing".

Asked about whether the ways to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula were discussed during the meeting, the Blue House official said "it might have been" without elaborating further.

The DPRK's Korean Central News Agency reported earlier in the day that Kim made "a satisfactory agreement" with the South Korean envoy over a summit intention.

On coming back to the ROK Tuesday afternoon, the envoys will brief Moon on the result of their DPRK visit, and then will visit Washington to share the result of their talks with the DPRK leader and senior DPRK officials, according to the Blue House.

The South Korean envoys reportedly planned to visit the United States within this week to broker a possible dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.