North Korea threatened to call off next month’s historic summit with President Trump and has canceled discussions with South Korea scheduled to take place Wednesday, according to South Korean media.
North Korea canceled the talks with South Korea due to ongoing military drills between the U.S. and South Korean militaries, Yonhap News Service reported. Officials from the two Koreas were expected to continue discussions following a meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un last month.
Citing North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Yonhap reported that the North believed the drills were in preparation for an invasion.
“This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula,” the report from KCNA said, according to Yonhap. “The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities.”
The U.S. and South Korea just began spring exercises on the peninsula called Foal Eagle and Max Thunder, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Logan said.
When asked about reports that North Korea had broken off communications with the South and threatened to withdraw from the summit with Trump, fellow Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning added the purpose of the training is to “enhance interoperability and readiness.”
“While we will not discuss specifics, the defensive nature of these combined exercises has been clear for many decades and has not changed,” Manning said in a statement.
Trump is expected to meet with Kim June 12 in Singapore, and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday she was aware of the reports.
“The United States will look at what North Korea has said independently, and continue to coordinate closely with our allies,” she said.
[Opinion: Why Singapore is a great choice for the Trump summit with Kim Jong Un]
The warning from North Korea comes less than a week after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang to meet with Kim and finalize the details of the meeting between the North Korean leader and Trump.
Pompeo returned to the U.S. with three American citizens who had been detained by the rogue regime. The White House called their release a “positive gesture of goodwill” ahead of the summit.
Satellite imagery from May 7 also showed North Korean workers dismantling a nuclear test site in the northeastern part of North Korea. A demolition ceremony is planned for late May, during which the tunnels leading into the site will be destroyed.
On Saturday, Trump called the dismantling of the site “a very smart and gracious gesture.”
Travis J. Tritten contributed to this report.
