Beijing urges goodwill for peninsula summit

Beijing has urged all parties to demonstrate goodwill and sincerity for the planned summit between Pyongyang and Washington, calling for active efforts for denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Now is an important opportunity for the process of a political solution to the issue, and Pyongyang and Washington should work together to create a good atmosphere for the summit, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Wednesday after Pyongyang threatened to cancel the summit.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s first vice-foreign minister said the country has no interest in a summit with the United States if it’s going to be a “one-sided” affair in which the DPRK is pressured to give up its nuclear weapons.

The statement by Kim Kye-gwan on Wednesday came hours after the DPRK abruptly canceled a high-level meeting with the Republic of Korea and threatened to do the same with a planned summit between DPRK leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump next month in Singapore.

When asked if the summit with the DPRK is still on, Trump said on Wednesday in the White House, “No decision. We haven’t been notified at all. We’ll have to see.

“We haven’t seen anything. We haven’t heard anything. We will see what happens. Whatever it is, it is,” he added.

“We support and hope that the DPRK and the ROK will express full understanding of and respect for each other’s reasonable concerns and work together to accumulate trust and improve ties according to the spirit of dialogue, reconciliation and cooperation demonstrated in the Panmunjom Declaration,” Lu said.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula had seemed to ease significantly since January, when Pyongyang decided to participate in the Winter

Olympics, hosted by Seoul.

The hard-won dialogue and easing of tensions in peninsula should be treasured by all parties and is line with their common interests, Lu said.

Seoul said it regrets the suspension of the high-level talks and urged Pyongyang to resume them as soon possible, while its Defense Ministry said the drills continue as planned, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Lisa Collins, a fellow Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said she believed the Kim-Trump summit will still happen.

"Trump is staking a good deal of political capital on solving the North Korea nuclear issue, and Kim Jong-un has also announced the summit to his own people." Collins said in an analysis on Wednesday.

"At this stage, each sid would have to come up with a very good pretext to cancel the meeting and would also

"At this stage, each side would have to come up with a very good pretext to cancel the meeting..." Lisa Collins, fellow with the Korea Chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies

risk a return to potential conflict on the Korean Peninsula if the summit negotiations fail."

"The president is ready if the meeting takes place," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told Fox News on Wednesday: "If it doesn't, we'll continue the maximum pressure campaign that's been ongoing."