US President Joe Biden says he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right conditions, as the country works to denuclearise the Korean peninsula.

Speaking to media with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the pair injected fresh urgency into attempts to engage North Korea in dialogue over its nuclear weapons.

Both said the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was their goal.

The US President said he was "under no illusions" about the difficulty of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal after his predecessors failed.

Mr Biden said he would be willing to meet Mr Kim under the right conditions — if there was a commitment from the North Korean leader "that there's discussion about his nuclear arsenal", and that his advisers first met with their North Korean counterparts to lay the groundwork.

"I would not do what had been done in the recent past; I would not give him all he's looking for — international recognition as legitimate and allow him to move in the direction of appearing to be more … serious about what he wasn't at all serious about," he said.

Mr Biden's comments appeared to reflect a shift in his thinking.

The White House had said in March it was not his intention to meet with Mr Kim.

Mr Biden said a veteran State Department official, Sung Kim, would serve as special US envoy for North Korea.

Sung Kim is a Korean-American diplomat who served as special envoy for North Korea under president Barack Obama and helped set up Mr Trump's summits with North Korea's leader.

He has also been ambassador to South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia and most recently served in an acting capacity as the top US diplomat for East Asia.

South Korea had been pushing for the appointment of an envoy, and Mr Moon, for whom engagement with North Korea is a legacy issue before he leaves office next year, said Sung Kim would help explore whether North Korea is willing to engage diplomatically.

China and Taiwan also high priorities for Biden and Moon

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Mr Moon was the second foreign leader — after Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga — to visit the White House since the Biden administration took office in January.

The two discussed China and Taiwan, which has been a contentious issue in the Indo-Pacific in recent times.

Taiwan has complained of repeated military pressure from Beijing, with China's air force making frequent forays into Taiwan's air defence identification zone.

"We've shared the view that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is extremely important, and we agreed to work together on that matter while considering special characteristics in relations between China and Taiwan," Mr Moon said.

In another win for South Korea's President, who has faced pressure at home over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said the United States and South Korea had agreed on a vaccine partnership that would combine US expertise and Korean production capacity.

He said this would help supply COVID-19 vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region, while Mr Biden said the United States would provide vaccinations for 550,000 South Korean soldiers.

Reuters