President Donald Trump is not modifying his position on de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula despite threats by North Korea to cancel a planned summit with the US.
.@realDonaldTrump says he will still insist on full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula pic.twitter.com/S1prIwNMr7
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) May 16, 2018
“We’ll have to see” whether the summit happens, Trump said, refusing to engage reporters on whether he believed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was bluffing over his threats. “We haven’t seen anything. We haven’t heard anything. We will see what happens. Whatever it is.”
Trump’s comments come after North Korea released a lengthy statement of protest regarding US-South Korean military drills on the Korean peninsula in which the government threatened to cancel an upcoming summit. “If the United States is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the D.P.R.K.-U.S. summit,” the North Korean statement said Tuesday.
Complete de-nuclearization of the peninsula has been the stated goal of the summit from the Trump administration since the its announcement.