NK threatens to cancel talks

US hopeful even as Pyongyang slams military exercises with S.Korea

Washington, May 16: Taking strong exception to the military exercises between Seoul and Washington, North Korea cancelled a high-level meeting with South Korea and threatened to scrap the historic meeting between its leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, even as the US maintained it was going ahead with the summit preparations.

Uncertainty looms larger over the June 12 summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore after North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released an statement in this regards hours before the two Koreas were to meet at a border village on Wednesday. The two countries expected to discuss ways to implement their leaders' recent agreements to reduce military tensions along their heavily fortified border and improve their overall ties.

The statement that comes after a brief hiatus in the war of words between Trump and Kim is likely to mar efforts towards building a denuclearised Korean Peninsula. The White House said it would independently look at what Pyongyang has said. The State Department said it was going ahead with preparations for the summit as planned earlier.

In a statement attributable to KCNA, Pyongyang cited the ongoing military exercise between the US and South Korea as a reason behind the move.

“The joint exercise is a reflection of the invariable stand of the US and south Korea to persist in the ' maximum pressure and sanctions' against the DPRK,” it said.

DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is more commonly known as North Korea.

In a related development, North Korea also cancelled its May 16 talks with the South.

The statement by North Korea is likely to mar efforts towards building a denuclearised Korean Peninsula.

North Korea also cancelled its May 16 talks with the South over its military drills with US

Since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the Koreas held three historic summits.