The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, devoted its front and second pages to reports on the summit. It also carried 18 photos of the meeting, including a group photo of Moon, Kim and other officials accompanying the leaders.

Korean Central Television, monitored here in Seoul, also aired about seven minutes of footage of the summit at 9:12 a.m. It showed Moon and Kim posing for a group photo, along with other staff from the two sides.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency first reported the details related to the secretly held summit hours before President's Moon's previously scheduled press conference set for 10 a.m. on Sunday.

Moon said the meeting was held at the request of North Korean leader Kim.

What has been reported by the North Korean media almost appears to be in line with the results of the summit disclosed by the South Korean government. They, however, did not report who initiated the summit meeting.

The North Korean media paid keen attention to the summit apparently as it was held amid concerns that the highly anticipated meeting between the North and the US leaders might be on the brink of collapse.

US President Donald Trump announced his cancellation of the talks with Kim in an open letter Thursday but later reversed course to suggest the meeting would go ahead as scheduled.

Following the inter-Korean summit, he said, "We're looking at June 12th in Singapore. That hasn't changed."

Moon said the summit outcome was announced one day after the meeting because Kim asked for the delay, citing domestic situations.

Experts say the delay might have been intended to give the North's media more time to extensively cover the event to enlist public support from its people.

"The fact that Chairman Kim asked Moon to delay the announcement of the summit outcome could signify that the North wanted to cover relevant stories concurrently and extensively through the domestic audience-oriented media," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Dongguk University.

"By publicizing the summit in an active manner through such media, it appears intended to drum up support from its people about its policy toward the South and the US going forward," he added. (Yonhap)