May 25, 2018

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the U.S. and North Korea should show patience and meet each other halfway, after U.S. President Donald Trump called off a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un scheduled for June 12.

Ministry spokesman Lu Kang made the call at a news conference, while noting that Trump had said he remained willing to meet with Kim in future.

North Korea said on Friday it was still open to talks with Donald Trump called off a summit with leader Kim Jong Un, saying it hoped the “Trump formula” could resolve the standoff over its nuclear weapons programme.

Trump on Thursday announced his withdrawal from what would have been the first-ever meeting between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader, scheduled for Singapore on June 12, in a letter to Kim, citing North Korea’s “tremendous anger and open hostility”.

Trump’s decision came after repeated threats by North Korea to pull out of the summit over what it saw as confrontational remarks by U.S. officials.

“We have inwardly highly appreciated President Trump for having made the bold decision, which any other U.S. presidents dared not, and made efforts for such a crucial event as the summit,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by state media.

“We even inwardly hoped that what is called ‘Trump formula’ would help clear both sides of their worries and comply with the requirements of our side and would be a wise way of substantial effect for settling the issue,” he said, without elaborating.

Kim Kye Gwan said North Korea’s recent criticisms of certain U.S. officials had been a reaction to unbridled American rhetoric, and that the current antagonism showed “the urgent necessity” for the summit.

North Korea had sharply criticized suggestions by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and Vice President Mike Pence that it could share the fate of Libya if it did not swiftly surrender its nuclear arsenal.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and killed by NATO-backed militants after halting his nascent nuclear programme.

Trump had initially sought to placate North Korea, saying that he was not pursuing the “Libya model” in getting the North to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also said: “This is the President Trump model. He’s going to run this the way he sees fit.”

While the Trump administration had insisted on North Korea’s complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear programme, Pyongyang had always couched its language in terms of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

It has said in previous, failed talks that it could consider giving up its arsenal if the United States provided security guarantees by removing its troops from South Korea and withdrew its so-called nuclear umbrella of deterrence from South Korea and Japan.

North Korea on Thursday announced it had completely dismantled its Punggye-ri nuclear test facility “to ensure the transparency of discontinuance” of nuclear testing.

Footage of the event broadcast by South Korean media on Friday showed explosions throwing up huge clouds of dust and debris as they destroyed tunnel entrances and multiple wooden structures around the site.

Other images showed North Korean officials displaying a map of the site, including several major tunnel complexes they said were unused and completely operational prior to being destroyed.

Some analysts are worried the cancelling of the summit could prompt a resumption in hostilities, including renewed shorter-range missile tests or stepped-up cyber attacks by Pyongyang and increased sanctions or deployment of new military assets by Washington.

Trump, in his letter, sounded a bellicose note, warning Kim of the United States’ greater nuclear might, reminiscent of the president’s tweet last year asserting that he had a “much bigger” nuclear button than Kim.

Speaking later, Trump said the U.S. military stood ready if Kim were to take any “foolish” action and that the United States would continue its “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Many South Koreans reacted angrily to the announcement, feeling they had been cheated of a chance of a lifetime to live in peace.