North Korea unexpectedly cancelled a high-level inter-Korean summit, throwing recent diplomatic rapprochement into question.
In a phone call early on Wednesday morning, North Korea announced that it was cancelling its scheduled high-level talks with South Korea over ongoing U. S.-South Korea joint military exercises.
According to a statement carried in North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the talks were canceled on account of the Max Thunder exercises, which the report described as a rehearsal for an invasion of the North. The South Korean Unification Ministry confirmed the meeting’s cancellation.
“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 development on the Korean Peninsula,” the KCNA news report noted.
“We have no choice but to suspend the North-South high-level talks planned for the 16th amid this menacing situation where an indiscriminate ruckus to invade the North and a confrontational mayhem are occurring in the South.”
The statement also included a mild threat that the upcoming June 12 summit between U. S. President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un might be derailed.
“United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.
