Taken at face value, Mr. Kim’s remarks, as relayed by the South Korean envoy, signaled that North Korea was willing to strike a denuclearization deal personally with Mr. Trump, who has been more eager to engage North Korea than any of his predecessors. They also suggested Mr. Kim could accept the rapid denuclearization the Trump administration has sought — for the right incentives.

The Singapore meeting made Mr. Trump the first sitting American president to meet with a North Korean leader. He has since boasted of his “warm” relationship with the dictator, who has test-launched missiles capable of reaching the continental United States and been accused of gruesome human rights abuses, including the summary executions of his uncle and other political enemies.

His administration has maintained a harder line. On Thursday, the Justice Department said it had charged a North Korean in the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment and accused the North of a broad conspiracy that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses worldwide.

Analysts said Mr. Kim was wooing Mr. Trump in hopes of dividing him from his hard-line advisers, in order to prevent the president from returning to the threats of military action that he made last year.

“Kim Jong-un is buying time,” said Lee Byong-chul, a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul. “He probably saw that there was nothing good in provoking Trump,” especially when the American president “faces deepening legal trouble at home and disarray in his administration.”

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Mr. Kim had reaffirmed North Korea’s commitment to denuclearize during his meetings with Mr. Chung. But it fell short of saying whether Mr. Kim would take major steps toward that goal.

Mr. Kim has not offered to provide a full inventory of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, as Washington has demanded. Nor has Mr. Kim offered any detailed plan for disarmament.