North Korea threw next month’s summit between Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump into doubt on Wednesday, threatening weeks of diplomatic progress by saying it may reconsider if Washington insists it unilaterally gives up its nuclear weapons.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said earlier that Pyongyang had called off high-level talks with Seoul, which had been due on Wednesday. Citing first Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan, KCNA later said the fate of the unprecedented U.S.-North Korea summit, as well as bilateral relations, “would be clear” if the United States spoke of a “Libya-style” denuclearisation for the North.
‘No unilateral move’
“If the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit,” he said.
The U.S. was still hopeful about the summit, scheduled for Singapore on June 12, but also prepared for a tough negotiation process, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
“We’re still hopeful that the meeting will take place and we’ll continue down that path, but at the same time we’ve been prepared that these could be tough negotiations,” said Ms. Sanders. “The President is ready if the meeting takes place. If it doesn’t, we’ll continue the maximum pressure campaign that’s been ongoing.”
Vice Minister Kim specifically criticised U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has called for North Korea to quickly give up its nuclear arsenal in a deal that mirrors Libya’s abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction. “(The) world knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq which have met miserable fate,” he said.
Calling Mr. Bolton’s suggestion “absurd”, he said North Korea was a nuclear weapon state while Libya had been at the initial stage of nuclear development.
The statement came hours after North Korea pulled out of talks with the South after denouncing the U.S.-South Korean “Max Thunder” air combat drills, which it said involved U.S. stealth fighters, B-52 bombers and “nuclear assets”.
