WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday brushed aside threats by North Korea to cancel a summit meeting between President Trump and its leader, Kim Jong-un, but the harsh words underscored the chasm that will separate the two leaders next month in Singapore over how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Mr. Trump struck a noncommittal tone about the status of the meeting — “We’ll have to see,” he told reporters — but said he still planned to demand that the North surrender its entire nuclear program. A top North Korean official said Mr. Kim would not tolerate attempts to “drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.”While administration officials and outside experts said they believed the meeting would go off as planned, the clashing messages brought a diplomatic high-wire act temporarily back to earth, replacing the talk of history-making handshakes and Nobel Peace Prizes with the sober recognition that North Korea views disarmament very differently than the United States does. The reversal came after months in which Mr. Kim presented himself as a statesman, halting missile tests and freeing imprisoned Americans. Now, the North has reverted to its earlier hard-line stance on keeping its nuclear weapons and to a playbook that includes sudden shifts in tactics when negotiating with other nations.

Source: New York Times May 17, 2018 00:18 UTC