US Prez.Trump cancels nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong
WASHINGTON : U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday called off his planned June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which was to take place in Singapore. Trump accuses North Korea of “tremendous anger and open hostility.
“The meeting, which would have marked the first face-to-face encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, was set for June 12.”You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” Trump writes.
The meeting, which would have marked the first face-to-face encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, was set for June 12 in Singapore.
“Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote in a letter to Kim, which was released Thursday morning. Stocks fell and gold rose after news of the cancellation broke.
Much of the letter was written in seemingly friendly terms, including praise for North Korea’s recent release of three American prisoners. In contrast, Trump also appeared to issue a threat that conjured memories of his war of words with Kim last year.
In a letter to Mr. Kim, Mr. Trump wrote: “..based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.””I was very much looking forward to being there with you,” the President said in his letter, which was released by the White House.
In a dramatic turnaround in March, Mr. Trump had accepted an offer from Mr. Kim of a summit, conveyed through South Korean interlocutors. After months of diatribe and threats, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim appeared willing to negotiate denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but the initiative began to unravel early this month with both countries resorting to fresh threats.
In the most recent statement that Mr. Trump mentions in his letter, Choe Son Hui, a vice-minister in the North Korean Foreign Ministry, talked of a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” with the U.S, threatening to call off the summit.
The statement from North Korea was in response to a statement from U.S Vice-President Mike Pence on May 21, in which he warned off a “Libya model” if Mr. Kim did not agree to denuclearize.( With Agency Inputs ).
