“It was not easy to get here,” the North Korean leader said, noting the two sides “overcame” obstacles to finally meet face to face in Singapore.

SINGAPORE — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his historic meeting here with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un went “better than anybody could’ve expected” and that the two leaders would be “signing” something before they parted ways.

But neither Trump nor Kim provided details on any possible agreement at the end of a half-day of meetings centered around U.S. efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

The summit was historic in and of itself: the first-ever meeting between an American president and his North Korean counterpart.

The first in a series of dramatic moments came as Trump and Kim shook hands Tuesday morning.

As the two men approached each other on a colonnade at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island here, with American and North Korean flags interspersed behind them, reporters could hear Kim or his interpreter say, “Nice to meet you, Mr. President.”

Then, they posed for photographs, stern-faced, before making their way to a meeting room where they spoke briefly to the media.

“We will have a terrific relationship,” Trump said. “I have no doubt.”