The Trump administration will “continue planning” for military exercises with South Korea despite North Korea’s reported threat to cancel a much-anticipated summit with President Trump, a State Department official said Tuesday.
“Kim Jong Un had said previously that he understands the need and the utility of the United States and the Republic of Korea continuing in its joint exercises,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday. “They’re exercises that are legal, they’re planned well, well in advance. We have not heard anything from that government or the government of South Korea to indicate that we would not continue conducting these exercises or that we would not continue planning for our meeting and President Trump and Kim Jong Un next month.”
North Korea’s threat to cancel the talks, aired by state-run media, is the first highly-dissonant note from the regime after weeks of a overtly conciliatory displays between the three nations. Nauert, who briefed reporters shortly after the regime revived its past denunciations of the exercises, stressed that Kim’s team had not contacted the United States with the complaint.
“What we have to go on is what Kim Jong Un said before,” she said. “We’ve received no formal or even informal notification of anything.”
Since Kim first surprised the world by requesting a personal meeting with Trump and offering to negotiate the dismantling of his nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials have emphasized the need to treat North Korean pledges with skepticism.
“All efforts in the past have failed and have simply bought North Korea time to achieve what they want to achieve,” Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. “Maybe this is a breakthrough. I seriously doubt it.”
