The news from North Korea injected sudden tension and uncertainty into what had been months of warming relations on the Korean Peninsula.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea abruptly postponed high-level talks with South Korea on Wednesday to protest a joint South Korean-United States Air Force drill, and warned that the historic summit meeting between North Korea’s leader and President Trump next month could be jeopardized.
The news injected sudden tension and uncertainty into what had been months of warming relations on the Korean Peninsula. It came weeks before North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who has raised the possibility of relinquishing his nuclear weapons, is scheduled to confer with President Trump in what would be the first meeting between leaders of both countries.
Mr. Trump, who threatened North Korea less than a year ago with “fire and fury” if Mr. Kim attacked the United States with nuclear weapons, has said he hopes the planned June 12 meeting in Singapore will lead to improved relations with North Korea after decades of hostility.
Senior officials from the two Koreas had been scheduled to meet in the so-called “truce village” of Panmunjom on their border on Wednesday to discuss putting in place an agreement to improve ties and ease military tensions between the countries that their leaders signed in a meeting on April 27.
But the North, appearing to catch South Korea off guard, informed the South early Wednesday that it was unilaterally postponing the talks “indefinitely,” the South’s Unification Ministry said.
The North cited as a reason the annual “Max Thunder” air force drill that South Korea and the United States started last week, the Unification Ministry said.
