North Korea’s vice foreign minister warned the United States that Kim will cancel the summit if the Trump office doesn’t leave the attempts to drive DPRK into a corner to force the unilateral nuclear abandonment, reported North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday.
Kim Gye Gwan added that North Korea will no longer be interested in dialogue with the US if the Trump administration will continue to press NK to abandon its nuclear programme in the unilateral mode. In such a case, there will be nor “sincerity” for improved relations, neither “dialogue” between the countries.
The statement singled out national security adviser John Bolton, known for his hawkish stance on North Korea, for pushing the Libya model, as well as the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” (CVID) of the North and the “total decommissioning” of its nuclear weapons, IBM as well as biological and chemical weapons.
In a protest against South Korean military exercises with the US, the North has also cancelled a round of talks with South Korea that planned to be held in Seoul.
The Max Thunder drill that began on Friday has involved about 100 warplanes. It “is training for pilot skill enhancement, not an attack drill or implementation of an operation plan,’ Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo explained.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency said the manoeuvres represented a “flagrant challenge” to the joint declaration by Kim and Moon at a summit at the “truce village” of Panmunjom, where the two leaders agreed to completely “cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain”.
