Is the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit in jeopardy?

  • 16/05/2018

President Donald Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un next month appears to be in jeopardy.

On Tuesday (local time), North Korea cancelled a talk with South Korea planned for the following day, and it's now threatening to call off the summit with the US.

Angered by combined South Korean and US military drills, Mr Kim has warned that the US will have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea summit.

The Korean Central News Agency quoted a North Korean official as saying it would not agree to talks if it felt as though it were being "pushed into a corner".

The North's state media called the drills, which were jointly conducted with South Korean authorities, a "provocative military ruckus".

"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."

When the summit was organised in March, then-CIA director and now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was under the impression Mr Kim wouldn't object to the drills.

The South Korean national security adviser was told the same.

However in April Mr Trump told media that plans could always be "scuttled".

The White House says the US is reviewing the statement from North Korea, and that the State Department will continue to operate on the assumption that the summit will go ahead.

Newshub.