Back in South Korea, crowds are gathering in the capital, Seoul, as they watch the departure of leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un on their separate ways to Sentosa. BBC News Korean service reporter David Oh shared this photo from the city's central railway station.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is now making his way towards Sentosa island. The two leaders will make history in less than an hour when they meet.

Image source, Reuters

Kim Jong-un has left his hotel. All going to plan so far.

For North Koreans who escaped to Seoul, having personally suffered under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, this is difficult. Defector artists like painter Song Byeok and animator Choi Seong-guk once played instrumental roles in North Korea's propaganda machine. They shared with our journalists Heather Chen and Minji Lee their strong sentiments about the regime.

"As someone who actually comes from North Korea, hearing praise about Kim Jong-un makes me really angry.

Presumably from his convoy, Mr Trump has been tweeting about other issues on his mind.

The first 45 minutes of this historic meeting will be just Mr Kim, Mr Trump and their translators. Mr Trump has said he will know within the first minute whether it's going to be a success.

President Trump's motorcade can be seen slowly making its way to the Capella hotel on Sentosa island where the historic summit will be held.

Image source, Reuters

• North Korea is a communist dictatorship and a terrible human rights abuser and has been isolated on the global stage for decades.
• In the past few years, Pyongyang has mastered nuclear weapons and developed missiles that can reach the mainland US.
• There have been past negotiations but Pyongyang has failed to keep its word on those.
• A surprise thaw earlier this year led to Donald Trump breaking with diplomatic protocol and agreeing to direct talks with Kim Jong-un.
• While some pundits warn the talks are rushed and could be exploited by Pyongyang, others say that just having the summit is already a step forward.

Image source, EPA

So Donald Trump’s the first sitting US president to meet a North Korean leader. What about non-sitting ones? In 1994, former President Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang for talks with Kim Il-sung and in 2010 he was there again to negotiate the release of some US detainees. In 2009, Bill Clinton went to North Korea and met Kim Jong-il, also to bring home some prisoners. But both Mr Carter and Mr Clinton were no longer in office when they visited.

US President Donald Trump has left his hotel and is making his way to Sentosa island, where the meeting will take place.

It's bright and early in Singapore and our teams on the ground are gathering the latest information and updates ahead of the Trump Kim meeting, which is expected to take place in just a few hours.

The BBC's Seoul correspondent Laura Bicker has shared this gem of a summit outfit. BBC reporter Mariko Oi, who's at the St Regis hotel awaiting Kim Jong-un as he departs for Sentosa island, says operations are in full swing.

Follow our team updates here, external.

North Korean leaders have always wanted a face-to-face meeting with a US president because it would mean they were finally being taken seriously. But the US and most other countries have refused to engage with Pyongyang unless it changed its ways - ending the nuclear programme was always a precondition to getting that much-wanted photo op. This policy went out of the window when Donald Trump responded to Kim Jong-un’s overture earlier this year by saying he'd love to chat.

It isn’t really clear. The general top line, it's thought, is "denuclearisation” - but that is incredibly vague. Both sides have a very different view of what it means.

The US has historically said it wants to see complete, irreversible and verifiable dismantlement (CVID) of North Korea's controversial nuclear programme in return for aid and a dropping of sanctions. But North Korea is highly unlikely to agree to give up its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang wants to be seen as an equal and will demand a lot more than aid or sanctions changes before dismantling a nuclear deterrent it sees as vital for its survival.

NK News's managing editor tweets;

So what's going to happen? We asked North Korea analyst Prof Robert Kelly - who's also going to be commenting across BBC World News coverage on TV today.

"Nobody thinks the North Koreans are just going to give up their nuclear weapons. They've spent 50 years developing these things - they're not going to give them up for nothing. That means they're going to be asking for a lot and the president has to decide if we're going to give them something substantial."

Korea analyst and writer for NK News, external Peter Ward has been taking a look at that remarkable Rodong Sinmun front page.

Here are some more pictures of the surreal sight of Kim Jong-un taking an evening stroll around Singapore's Marina Bay last night.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Something extraordinary has happened this morning - Kim Jong-un's guided tour of Singapore has appeared on the front page of Rodong Sinmun, the state newspaper. It carried pictures of him enjoying the sites and quoted him as saying "Singapore is clean, beautiful, and all buildings have their characters".

He reportedly told local ministers he "intends to learn from the knowledge and experience of your respected country".