The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, says Kim Jong-un is committed to having North Korea participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Bach said he had a 30-minute formal meeting with the North Korean leader followed by 45 minutes of casual discussions while watching a football match on Friday at Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium.

He said Kim expressed his appreciation for the IOC’s role in helping North Korea compete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea last month.

“We had a very fruitful meeting where it became clear that the supreme leader has a clear vision of the role that sport can play in a society with regard to education, with regard to health,” Bach said.

He added that Kim told him the North’s participation at Pyeongchang and marching together with South Korean athletes were an “important contribution to a peaceful dialogue”.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday said Bach expressed his “heartfelt thanks” to Kim over the North’s participation at Pyeongchang , which made the event “symbolic of peace”.

In response, Kim told Bach he was “very thankful” the IOC took special measures to allow for North Korean athletes to compete in South Korea. He called for further cooperation with the IOC in developing winter sports and other sports activities in North Korea, the agency said.

Bach arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday to discuss development of sports in North Korea and the preparation of its athletes to qualify and participate in upcoming Olympics. He is the first foreign official to meet Kim since the North Korean leader returned earlier this week from a summit in Beijing with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Bach, who also met with North Korea’s sports minister, said he received a commitment from the county’s National Olympic Committee to participate in Tokyo in 2020 and Beijing in 2022, and “this commitment has been fully supported by the supreme leader, Kim Jong-un”.

Both the North and South hailed the Pyeongchang Games as a significant step toward easing tensions on the Korean peninsula.