North Korea suspended ongoing talks with South Korea Wednesday in response to joint U.S.-South Korean military drills and called into question the viability of President Trump’s upcoming meeting with Kim Jong-un.
After a historic summit between Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in last month produced a joint commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, the next round of high-level talks, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, were abruptly cancelled in response to the so-called “Max Thunder Drills” — a two week exercise involving more than 100 aircraft. North Korean officials cast the military exercise, which began last week, as an unwarranted provocation that violated the Panmunjom Declaration, which committed both countries to denuclearization and an end to hostile relations.
"This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea and targeting us, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula," North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) explained Wednesday.
The report went on to suggest that the military exercise has jeopardized Trump’s widely anticipated meeting with Kim, which was set to take place June 12 in Singapore.
"The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities," the report read. "We will keep a keen eye on the future attitudes of the US and South Korean authorities."
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