US President Donald Trump arrived Sunday in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean peninsula ahead of a meeting with the North's leader, Kim Jong Un.
The encounter, only suggested a day earlier by Trump on Twitter, comes with negotiations over the North's nuclear programme in stalemate since their last summit in Vietnam in February.
Accompanied by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, an earnest-looking Trump toured an observation post overlooking North Korean territory, with a US military officer pointing out the sights.
Trump is expected to hold a brief encounter with Kim in the DMZ, which would be their third face-to-face meeting after a historic initial summit in Singapore and a second in Hanoi that collapsed without an agreement.
"There was great conflict here prior to our meeting in Singapore," Trump said at the observation post.
"After our first summit, all of the danger went away... It's all working out, it always works out," he concluded before leaving the site to meet with US troops.
He and Kim would "just shake hands quickly and say hello because we haven't seen each other since Vietnam", Trump said earlier.