Kim Jong-un Invites South Korean Leader to Summit in North

SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has invited President Moon Jae-in of South Korea to visit his country “at an early date” for a summit meeting, Mr. Moon’s office announced on Saturday.

Mr. Moon said the two Koreas should “work together to create the environment to make it happen,” a spokesman said.

Mr. Kim relayed the invitation through his trusted adviser and only sister, Kim Yo-jong, who met with Mr. Moon at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Saturday, in the highest-level contact between the two Koreas in years. She is part of an official North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and she attended the opening ceremony of the Games on Friday.

Her brother’s invitation to Mr. Moon, who has been eager to pursue dialogue with the North, raised the prospect of détente between the two Koreas after more than a year of rising tensions spurred by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests, and by President Trump’s threats to use military force to end the crisis.

But the overture also has the potential to divide South Korea from the United States, its main military ally. The Trump administration has discouraged South Korea from engaging with the North unless it shows clear signs of giving up its nuclear weapons program.

Vice President Mike Pence, who was also at the Olympic opening ceremony (and sat just feet away from Ms. Kim), has been critical of the North’s participation in the Games, seeing it as an attempt to create just such a division.

In his message to Mr. Moon, Mr. Kim “said he was willing to meet President Moon Jae-in at an early date and asked him to visit North Korea at a convenient date,” said Kim Eui-kyeom, the spokesman for Mr. Moon.

Mr. Moon has said he was willing to meet Kim Jong-un only if he received assurance from the North that it would help resolve the crisis over the North’s nuclear weapons program. The exchange between Ms. Kim, who was visiting Seoul as her brother’s “special envoy,” and Mr. Moon indicated that the Koreas would soon begin high-level negotiations on the terms of a possible summit meeting.

“The South and North shared an understanding that they should continue the positive mood for peace and recognition created by the Pyeongchang Olympics and should promote inter-Korean dialogue, exchanges and cooperation,” Mr. Moon’s office said in a statement.

If Mr. Moon accepts Mr. Kim’s offer, it will be the third summit meeting between the two Koreas. Kim Jong-il, the deceased father of Kim Jong-un, had met with two South Korean presidents in Pyongyang before he died in 2011: with President Kim Dae-jung in 2000, and with President Roh Moo-hyun in 2007.

Ms. Kim is the first member of North Korea’s ruling family to visit the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

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