Prospect of historic meeting between leaders was the only news item on country’s main TV channel on Monday

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

North Koreans have received news that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has arrived in Singapore for what the state-run media described as a historic meeting with the US president, Donald Trump.

The story was reported the front page of the ruling party’s newspaper and was the only item on Monday’s first news broadcast on Korean Central Television, which for many in the North is the only channel available.

People crowded around poster stands at train stations around the capital, Pyongyang, to read the news, and gathered at noon on Monday in front of the city’s main train station to watch a large screen display of images of Kim disembarking from the special Air China flight that took him to Singapore.

A report by the state-run Korean Central News Agency said the summit would feature “wide-ranging and profound talks” and was being held “under the great attention and expectation of the whole world”.

State media has previously mentioned the summit, but Monday marked the first time that the topics of discussion and the aims of the meeting were reported.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A TV screen shows newsreader Ri Chun-hee announcing the arrival of Kim Jong-un in Singapore, during an evening bulletin in Pyongyang. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty

The relative speed with which state media reported on Kim’s arrival suggests a some confidence that the meeting will go well – or at least well enough.

Kim will be able to claim a huge propaganda bonus by sitting as an equal with the US president, an accomplishment his father and grandfather sought but could never realise.

By prominently showing the Air China jet that flew Kim to Singapore, the reports also made no secret of China’s important role behind the scenes. Trump has expressed some concern about China’s influence.

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Even so, the summit continues to be a sensitive topic in North Korea and it is difficult – even more so than usual – to get people to express opinions about it.

The media reports on the Trump-Kim talks on Monday follow months of only the scantest of coverage, though Kim’s summits with South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, received large-scale coverage soon after they had ended.

“When I woke up this morning, I saw the news in the newspaper that our respected marshal went to Singapore for the North Korea-US summit,” said Han Il-gwang, a Pyongyang resident, displaying typical discretion.

“I know Singapore is a very hot country, so I wish that our respected marshal stays healthy and comes back in good health.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Commuters read news of Kim Jong-un’s arrival in Singapore, at a train station in Pyongyang. Photograph: Eric Talmadge/AP

Such characteristic caution notwithstanding, the prospect of the summit is generating a great deal of interest among every day North Koreans.

The North has presented Kim’s sudden diplomatic overtures to the country’s neighbours and the US as a logical next step and completion of his plan to develop a credible nuclear deterrent in response to what Pyongyang says is a policy of “nuclear blackmail” by Washington.

Those points were echoed in Monday’s media coverage in North Korea, which stressed that the talks with Trump would focus on forging a relationship more in tune with what was described as changing times – most likely meaning the North’s new status as a nuclear-armed state – and its desire for a mechanism to ensure lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and, finally, denuclearisation.

What exactly Pyongyang has in mind for any of those broad topics remains to be seen.