US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart have discussed the meeting with North Korea's leader as leaders welcomed the dramatic breakthrough in the nuclear crisis.
World leaders have welcomed prospects for a possible thaw in the long stand-off over North Korea's nuclear weapons program after US President Donald Trump said he was prepared to hold an unprecedented meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump and Kim prompted jitters around the world last year as they exchanged bellicose insults over the North's attempts to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the US, which it has pursued in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.
But tension eased around last month's Winter Olympics in South Korea, laying the groundwork for what would be the first meeting between leaders from North Korea and the US, and the biggest foreign policy gamble for Trump since he took office in January last year.
"A meeting is being planned," Trump said on Twitter on Friday after accepting an invitation to meet from Kim. There was no date or venue yet for the meeting although it could take place in May.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Trump in a phone call on Friday that he appreciates his desire to resolve the North Korea issue politically, Chinese state media said.
Xi said he "hopes the United States and North Korea start contacts and dialogue as soon as possible and strive to reach positive results", the report said.
China is North Korea's largest trading partner and sole major ally, though overall trade has fallen in recent months as UN economic sanctions take effect. Trump has frequently tried to enlist Xi's help to rein in Pyongyang.
The head of South Korea's National Security Office, Chung Eui-yong, speaking in Washington on Thursday after briefing Trump about a meeting South Korean officials held with Kim this week, said Trump had agreed to meet the North Korean leader by May in response to Kim's invitation.
Kim had "committed to denuclearisation" and to suspending nuclear and missile tests, Chung said.
The talks will take some weeks to arrange, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.
A venue was not announced but neutral Switzerland, which often hosts summits, said it was ready to facilitate the meeting.
A meeting between Trump and Kim would be a major turnaround after a year in which North Korea has carried out a battery of missile tests that Washington sees as provocative and after a barrage of insults between the two leaders.
Trump has derided Kim as a "maniac," referred to him as "little rocket man" and threatened in a speech last year to "totally destroy" North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it attacked the US or one of its allies.
Kim responded by calling Trump a "mentally deranged US dotard".
Russia, which has joined years of on-again, off-again six-party talks, along with the US, the two Koreas and Japan, aimed at ending the stand-off, welcomed the new, positive signals.
The Japanese government, however, remained cautious.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump, in a call on Thursday, promised to continue to enforce sanctions until Pyongyang took "tangible steps ... towards denuclearisation", the White House said in a statement.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said news of the possible meeting gave reasons to be hopeful about Korea.
US Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday that the US had made "zero concessions" and had "consistently increased the pressure" on North Korea.
