N Korea says 'historic meeting' opens 'new era for peace'

The inter-Korean summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in was a "historic meeting" that paved the way for the start of a new era, Pyongyang's state media said today.

The official KCNA news agency said it was a "historic meeting that has opened a new era for national reconciliation and unity, peace and prosperity", and carried the text of the leaders' Panmunjom Declaration in full.

In the document the two leaders "confirmed the common goal of realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula". That phrase was included in the KCNA text as well.

For years, Pyongyang insisted it would never give up the "treasured sword" of its nuclear arsenal, which it says it needs to defend itself against a possible US invasion.

But it has offered to put it up for negotiation in exchange for security guarantees, according to Seoul -- although Kim made no public reference to doing so at yesterday's spectacular summit.

When Kim stepped over the military demarcation line that divides the peninsula he became the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the Korean War hostilities ceased in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

He then persuaded Moon to step into the North, and the two leaders shared a day of smiles, intimate moments, and a half-hour-long one-on-one conversation.