US President Donald Trump has reacted to North Korea’s threats to cancel a planned summit with Kim Jong-un.
“We haven't been notified at all, we'll have to see,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday. “We haven't seen anything, we haven't heard anything. We will see what happens.”
The US president gave the non-committal response after meeting with his Uzbek counterpart.
He further reiterated that denuclearization would be a pre-condition for the Singapore summit.
The White House, however, said it remained hopeful that the summit would be held, yet asserting that Washington would resort to “maximum pressure” if the June 12 meeting is canceled.
“The president is ready if the meeting takes place,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Fox News. “If it doesn't, we'll continue the maximum pressure campaign that's been ongoing.”
‘Beijing promotes dialog’
China, meanwhile, urged North Korea to stick to the planned summit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (pictured above) made the call as he met with a delegation from North Korea's ruling Worker's Party.
“We support the improvement of North-South [Korean] relations, the promotion of dialogue between North Korea and the US, denuclearization on the peninsula and North Korea's development of its economy and improvement of its people's livelihood,” Xi said.
Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang also said that the two leaders should hold the meeting and come up with “substantial outcomes.”
Bolton or summit?
The calls came after the North abruptly cancelled a high-level meeting with the South.
North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan specifically censured recent comments by Trump's hawkish security adviser, John Bolton, who has called for a “Libyan model” of nuclear disarmament as well as “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.”
According to a Guardian report, Pyongyang’s denunciation of the top advisor has “forced Donald Trump to decide whether to stick with his national security adviser and his hardline tactics, or push ahead with a summit with Kim Jong-un that will provide historic spectacle but an uncertain outcome.”