North Korea has no interest in a summit with the United States if it is going to be a ‘one-sided’ affair where it is pressured to give up its nuclear weapons, the country’s first vice foreign minister said. Earlier North Korea cancelled a high-level meeting with South Korea and threatened to scrap the historic summit next month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over military exercises between Seoul and Washington.
The surprise declaration, which came in a pre-dawn dispatch in North Korea’s state media, appears to cool what had been an unusual flurry of outreach from a country that last year conducted a provocative series of weapons tests that had many fearing the region was on the edge of war.
It is still unclear, however, whether the North intends to scuttle all diplomacy or merely wants to gain leverage ahead of the planned June 12 talks between Mr Kim and Mr Trump.