A SMILING Kim Jong Un embraced South Korean president Moon Jae-in upon his arrival in Pyongyang for their third summit on Tuesday.

Thousands of North Koreans holding flower bouquets waved national and unification flags and an honour guard quick-marched into tight lines.

Amid the pomp and smiles, Moon’s aims include resolving nuclear diplomacy, easing a military stand-off and promoting peace on a peninsula many feared was close to war last year.

The South Korean leader said ahead of his trip that he will push for “irreversible, permanent peace” and for better dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington during “heart-to-heart” talks with his North Korean counterpart.

Moon’s chief of staff, however, played down the chance that Moon’s summit with Kim will produce major progress in nuclear diplomacy. Moon and his wife, Kim Jung-sook, were greeted by Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju.

The North Korean leader then led his guests to meet some of his senior officials, and they exchanged mutual greetings.

As a military band played a rousing march, thousands of North Koreans, lined up in neat rows and dressed in black suits and traditional hanboks, cheered and waved bouquets of artificial flowers, the North Korean flag and a white-and-blue flag with a map symbolising a unified Korean peninsula.

North Korean soldiers and naval troops quick-marched into position to welcome Moon, and the two leaders inspected the honour guard.

A sign read: “We ardently welcome President Moon Jae-in.”

Hours after his arrival, Moon began an official summit with Kim at the ruling Workers’ Party headquarters.

The two were joined by two of their top deputies - spy chief Suh Hoon and presidential security director Chung Eui-yong

for Moon, and Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and senior Workers’ Party official Kim Yong Chol for the North Korean leader, according to Moon’s office.

At the start of their meeting, Kim thanked Moon for brokering a June summit with US president Donald Trump.

“It’s not too much to say that it’s Moon’s efforts that arranged a historic North Korea-US summit. Because of that, the situation has been stabilised and more progress is expected,” Kim said, according to South Korean media pool reports.

Moon responded by expressing his own thanks to Kim for making a “bold decision” in a New Year’s speech to open a new era of détente and send a delegation to the South Korean Winter Olympics in February.

Since taking office in May last year, Moon has met Kim twice at the Koreas’ shared border village of Panmunjom.

His Pyongyang trip makes him the third South Korean leader to visit North Korea’s capital for an inter-Korean summit since the peninsula was divided at the end of the Second World War.

The leaders are both pushing a reluctant Washington to sign off on formally ending the war with a peace treaty.

Moon is to meet Kim at least twice – later on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday before returning home on Thursday.

Moon said: “This summit would be very meaningful if it yielded a resumption of North Korea-US talks. It’s very important for South and North Korea to meet frequently, and we are turning to a phase where we can meet anytime we want.”

While presiding over a meeting with top advisers on Monday, Moon said he “aims to have lots of heart-to-heart talks” with Kim and achieve “irreversible peace that is not shaken by international politics”.

To achieve such a peace, Moon said he will focus during the summit on easing military tensions between the Koreas and promoting a North Korea-U.S. dialogue on denuclearisation issues by finding “a middle ground”.