A Japanese newspaper says no other leaders from related countries knew in advance about U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's surprise meeting at the inter-Korean border last weekend. 

The Nikkei on Wednesday assessed, however, that South Korean President Moon Jae-in played a leading role in Trump’s “historic entry” to the North on Sunday. 

Neither Moon, Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were said to have received early notice of Trump's "ambition” to direct a “maximum spectacle” at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom as an extension of the G20 Osaka Summit, according to the daily.

It asserted that the Saturday summit between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the G20 forum, where the two world’s biggest economies agreed to resume trade talks, ended up being a teaser for the DMZ talks. 

The report also said Trump was preoccupied with the plan the day he sat down with Xi, pointing to the American president's tweet about wanting to meet with Kim.

The Nikkei also claimed there was no chance Xi mediated the latest Trump-Kim meeting since China, one the parties directly involved in the Korean War armistice, was left out of the trilateral meeting that included Moon at the DMZ.