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The U.S. and South Korea’s joint military exercises are reportedly not sitting well with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Buzz60
SEOUL — A senior North Korean official warned Wednesday that Pyongyang may cancel its summit meeting between Kim Jong Un and President Trump scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, if it is going to be pushed into giving up its nuclear arsenal.
If the Trump administration pressures Pyongyang to unilaterally abandon its nuclear weapons, North Korea would have to reconsider the summit, vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
“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 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the formal name of North Korea).
Kim Kye Gwan accused the White House and State Department of attempting to turn North Korea into another Libya with its insistence on “abandoning nuclear weapons first, compensating afterwards.”
He called the approach “an awfully sinister move to impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq which had been collapsed due to yielding the whole of their country to big powers,” and singled out Trump’s hawkish national security adviser John Bolton for criticism.
“We do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards [Bolton],” Kim Kye Gwan said.
The high-ranking official declared that North Korea was already a nuclear-capable state, unlike Libya, and that preconditions for denuclearization would be “to put an end to anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail of the United States.”
The news came hours after the North canceled a high-level meeting with South Korean officials that was scheduled for Wednesday, citing a joint military exercise as the reason.
In its earlier statement, KCNA claimed that the U.S. and South Korea’s joint air drill, which began on Friday, was “a bid to make a preemptive airstrike at the DPRK and win the air.”
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Pompeo describes ‘complete agreement’ on goals of N.Korea summit
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The statement called the drill “an undisguised challenge” to the Panmunjom Declaration signed by the two countries at the inter-Korean summit held on April 27 and “a deliberate military provocation to the trend of the favorably developing situation on the Korean peninsula.”
“We cannot but take a step of suspending the north-south high-level talks scheduled on May 16,” the KCNA statement continued, and cautioned that “the U.S. will have to think twice about the fate of the DPRK-U.S. summit.”
The U.S. and South Korea are currently undertaking their annual Max Thunder drills, which this year involve around 100 aircraft, including eight F-22 stealth fighter jets. The exercise, carried out by the South Korean Air Force Operations Command and the U.S. 7th Air Force, has frequently been criticized by Pyongyang as a provocation.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the drills would continue as scheduled despite the protests from Pyongyang and their decision to cancel the high-level talks.
“Max Thunder training will proceed as planned, and there is no disagreement between [South Korea] and the U.S. in this regard,” read a statement from ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo. “Max Thunder is training for pilots to improve their skills, not an operational plan or offensive training.”
The exercise is scheduled to run through May 25.
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, which deals with inter-Korean issues, expressed disappointment in Pyongyang’s decision to cancel Wednesday’s talks.
Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun said it was “regrettable” that the North postponed the high-level talks, calling the action “inconsistent with the fundamental spirit and purpose of the Panmunjom Declaration agreed by the South and North leaders on April 27.”
“Inter-Korean talks must continue in order to discuss issues raised by the North,” he said.Â
More: Dismantling North Korea nukes could be costly and take years to complete
North Korean summit:Â Mike Pompeo says U.S. aware of risks, but hopes for success
Previously: North Korea threatens to cancel Trump-Kim Jong Un meeting
A woman dressed in a traditional gown pays her respects at statues of late North Korean leaders, Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. Unaware of reports his eldest son – and current leader Kim Jong UnÂ’s half-brother – was killed just days ago in what appears to have been a carefully planned assassination, North Koreans marked the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday as they do every year.Â
Azalea, whose Korean name is “Dalle”, a 19-year-old female chimpanzee, smokes a cigarette at the Central Zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea Oct. 19, 2016. According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favorite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it was re-opened in July, the chimpanzee smokes about a pack a day. They insist, however, that she does not inhale.Â
A picture released by the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling North Korean Workers Party, on Sept. 8, 2015, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center front, and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, second from right, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first vice-president of the Council of State, watching an art performance by the Moranbong Band and the State Merited Chorus in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 7, 2015. Bermudez led a Cuban delegation to North Korea to mark the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Cuba. Â
Men and women pump their fists in the air and chant “defend!” as they carry propaganda slogans calling for reunification of their country during the “Pyongyang Mass Rally on the Day of the Struggle Against the U.S.,” attended by approximately 100,000 North Koreans to mark the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War at the Kim Il Sung stadium, Thursday, June 25, 2015, in Pyongyang, North Korea. The month of June in North Korea is known as the “Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism Month” and it’s a time for North Koreans to swarm to war museums, mobilize for gatherings denouncing the evils of the United States and join in a general, nationwide whipping up of the anti-American sentiment.Â
North Koreans gather in front of a portrait of their late leader Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, right, paying respects to their late leader Kim Jong Il, to mark the third anniversary of his death, Wednesday Dec. 17 at Pyong Chon District in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea marked the end of a three-year mourning period for the late leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday, opening the way for his son, Kim Jong Un, to put a more personal stamp on the way the country is run. Â
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