North Korea Threatens To Withdraw From Trump Summit

North Korea is threatening to cancel its upcoming summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump over South Korea-U.S. military drills, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing North Korean state media.

North Korea has also canceled high-level talks with South Korea that were scheduled for Wednesday local time over those same drills, according to Yonhap.

The summit between the American and North Korean leader was first announced in March and Trump tweeted the scheduled date — June 12 — and location — Singapore — last week.

Three Americans that were held in North Korea for more than a year each were released last week, in what was seen by many as a gesture of goodwill before the scheduled summit.

The U.S. has not heard from North Korea and is still planning for the summit to go ahead, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

“What we have to go on is what Kim Jong Un has said before, that he understands and appreciates the importance to the United States of having these joint exercises, the Republic of Korea has as well,” Nauert said. “We’ve received no formal or even informal notification of anything.”

As the U.S. has done on multiple previous occasions, Nauert defended the exercises as “legal,” “planned well, well in advance” and “not provocative.”

Separately, a senior State Department official told reporters the U.S. and South Korea were in touch “a short while ago,” but referred questions on that to South Korea. That official confirmed that there’s been no contact from North Korea.

 

This story was originally reported by ABC