The White House said Thursday that if the North Koreans want to proceed with the planned summit next month between President Trump and Kim Jong Un, “we’ll be there.”
Trump is scheduled to meet with Kim in Singapore on June 12, but North Korea warned this week that planned ongoing military exercises between the U.S. and South Korean militaries could jeopardize the meeting.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders nevertheless said the president is prepared to meet with the North Korean leader and the Trump administration is moving forward with preparations for the summit.
“If the North Koreans want to meet, we’ll be there,” Sanders told reporters during the White House press briefing. “At this point there is not a lot of change beyond that and certainly not in our process.”
North Korea’s KCNA issued a statement Tuesday casting doubt on the June 12 summit, citing the recently started spring exercises between the U.S. and South Korea taking place on the Korean Peninsula.
The ongoing military drills led North Korea to call off discussions with South Korea that were scheduled to take place Wednesday, South Korean media reported. North Korea reportedly believed the exercises with the U.S. and South Korea were in preparation for an invasion of North Korea.
Sanders told reporters that despite the warnings from North Korea, the Trump administration is continuing with its “maximum pressure campaign” and dismissed the notion that North Korea was in control of whether the Trump-Kim meeting would take place.
“They’re certainly not in the driver’s seat. Nothing could be further from the truth, but they’re the ones that extended the invitation,” she said. “We’ve accepted it. If they’re happy to meet, we’re happy to do that. If they don’t, as the president said, we’ll see what happens but we’re going to continue the maximum pressure campaign. In the meantime, I don’t know how they would be in the driver’s seat in any capacity, form, or fashion in this process.”
Sanders also noted that North Korea has already made concessions during negotiations with the U.S. ahead of the June 12 meeting, such as the release of three U.S. citizens who had been detained by the rogue regime.
The three Americans returned to the U.S. last week with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he traveled to Pyongyang to meet Kim and further discuss the details of the upcoming summit.
“Three Americans are home now that weren’t. The president has had some success in this process, and certainly we’ve given up nothing and we’re going to continue moving forward,” Sanders said. “We’re moving into this with our eyes wide open. We’re not naive in this process.”
