NORTH KOREAN leader Kim Jong Un hosted a South Korean presidential delegation for dinner in Pyongyang yesterday, the latest development in the thaw between the estranged neighbors aided by the Winter Olympics.

This is the first time the 34-year-old North Korean leader is known to have met with any South Korean officials.

He has not met any heads of state since he came to power after his father’s death in late 2011.

“Chairman Kim Jong Un is currently hosting a dinner for the special envoys,” Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for South Korea’s presidential Blue House, told reporters in Seoul.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent a 10-member delegation to Pyongyang to begin preparations for an inter-Korean summit, the first in 10 years. Kim Jong Un last month invited Moon to visit Pyongyang, with the invitation hand-delivered by his sister, Kim Yo Jong, when she visited South Korea for the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

The South’s delegation, composed of five envoys and five working-level officials, is led by Chung Eui-yong, Moon’s national security adviser and someone who talks regularly to his American counterpart, H.R. McMaster. It also includes Suh Hoon, chief of the South’s National Intelligence Service.

“I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community,” Chung told reporters before departing Seoul yesterday afternoon.

Chung will travel to Washington after returning from Pyongyang to brief Trump administration officials on the meeting.

He was specifically chosen to lead the delegation because he would be viewed in Washington as a credible and trustworthy messenger, according to people in close touch with the Blue House. (SD-Agencies)