U.S. President Donald Trump has cancelled next month’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In a letter to Kim released Thursday morning, Trump said the face-to-face meeting, set to take place on June 12 in Singapore, was “inappropriate” to have “at this time.”

“Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote.

North Korea lashed out at the U.S. Thursday after Vice President Mike Pence repeated Trump’s Libya threat to Pyongyang – a reference to the 2011 U.S.-backed overthrow and murder of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

In a statement from North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, Pyongyang also protested U.S. demands that it unilaterally denuclearize without concession.

“U.S. Vice-President Pence has made unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya, military option for North Korea never came off the table, the U.S. needs complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, and so on,” Son-hui said. “As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice-president.”

Pence’s remark came after Trump, attempting to distance himself from White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, confused Bolton’s reference to the Libyan disarmament of 2003 with the NATO campaign against the country in 2011.

“The model, if you look at that model with Gaddafi, that was a total decimation. We went in there to beat them,” Trump told reporters. “Now, that model would take place if we don’t make a deal, most likely.”

Bolton’s initial comments on the “Libya model” last week began the souring relations that led to the summit’s cancellation.

North Korea’s First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan similarly accused Bolton last Wednesday of endangering the current détente with “unbridled remarks.”

“World knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq which have met miserable fate. It is absolutely absurd to dare compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya which had been at the initial stage of nuclear development,” Gwan wrote. “We shed light on the quality of Bolton already in the past, and we do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him.”

Trump’s Thursday letter, which thanked North Korea for releasing three American hostages, also made an ominous reference to the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

“You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” Trump wrote.

The president also left room open for the meeting to take place at another date and time.

“If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write,” Trump wrote.

The decision reportedly came as a surprise to some administration officials, who felt North Korea’s comments were merely posturing and that Kim still was expected to attend.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, said North Korea failed to respond when reached to discuss logistics for the summit.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was unaware of the plan to cancel, called an emergency meeting in Seoul at around midnight.

Reports claimed last week that the president became uneasy about the upcoming summit after North Korea expressed disagreement with U.S. demands.

News of the cancellation comes just hours after Pyongyang announced the closure of its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri.

Speaking in the Oval Office Thursday, Trump said the U.S. military was ready “if necessary” if conditions with North Korea continued to deteriorate. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, said Trump should insist that any meeting he holds with North Korea’s leader must be focused squarely on how to eliminate that country’s nuclear weapons program as quickly as possible.

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S. February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Bolton, a hawk who Trump named on Thursday to replace H.R. McMaster in the key security role, told Radio Free Asia on Monday that discussions at the proposed summit with Kim Jong Un should be similar to those that led to components of Libya’s nuclear program being shipped to the United States in 2004.

“Let’s have this conversation by May, or even before that, and let’s see how serious North Korea really is,” Bolton said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the RFA website on Friday.

“If they’re not prepared to have that kind of serious discussion, it could actually be a very short meeting.”

Bolton said North Korea had used negotiations in the past to camouflage its weapons development and he was skeptical about its intentions. He said U.S. ally South Korea, which restarted talks with North Korea this year, should be cautious before agreeing to anything with Pyongyang.

“We should insist that if this meeting is going to take place, it will be similar to discussions we had with Libya 13 or 14 years ago: how to pack up their nuclear weapons program and take it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” he said.

Bolton said it was important for Trump to “make the point that he’s not there to waste time and that we expect real denuclearization, not talks about talks about denuclearization, but concretely how we’re going to eliminate their program as quickly as possible.”

Bolton also said the United States should not offer North Korea economic aid, or a peace treaty, adding, “they’re lucky to be having a meeting with the President of the United States.”

Bolton, a hardliner who has advocated regime change and military force against North Korea, said no one wanted to see military action, but it would be a mistake to leave the country with nuclear weapons. He warned of the risk of Pyongyang selling nuclear weapons technology to Islamic State, al Qaeda, or any aspiring nuclear-weapons state.

“President Trump has unattractive options ... he doesn’t have much time,” Bolton said. “Somebody said, you know, we can’t kick the can down the road any further because there isn’t any road left.”

South Korean officials met Kim Jong Un this month and told Washington the leader was open to giving up his nuclear weapons if North Korea’s security was guaranteed.

Trump responded with a surprise announcement that he was willing to meet Kim before the end of May in a bid to resolve the crisis over North Korea’s development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States.

North Korea argues its weapons program is needed for defense, a belief analysts say is reinforced by the fate of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after giving up his nuclear program. </s> North Korea has said it may pull out of a summit with US President Donald Trump if the US insists it gives up its nuclear weapons.

The highly anticipated meeting between Mr Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is due to take place on 12 June.

But in an angry statement, North Korea’s vice-foreign minister accused the US of making reckless statements and of harbouring sinister intentions.

He pointed the finger squarely at US National Security Adviser John Bolton.

“We do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him,” Kim Kye-gwan said.

The groundbreaking agreement for Mr Kim and Mr Trump to meet came about as North Korea said it was committed to denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

Exactly what that would entail has remained unclear, but North Korea has invited foreign media to witness the dismantling of its main nuclear test site later this month.

Mr Bolton recently said North Korea could follow a “Libya model” of verifiable denuclearisation, but this alarms Pyongyang, which watched Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi give up his nuclear programme only for him to be killed by Western-backed rebels a few years later.

The BBC’s Laura Bicker in Seoul says North Korea – which had long said its nuclear arsenal is essential for its survival as a state – is now making its demands clear. </s> It wasn't so long ago that all seemed strangely rosy between the United States and North Korea. After exchanging threats, President Trump and Kim Jong-un agreed to meet in Singapore to discuss a peace agreement. The former announced he would dismantle a nuclear test site, which Trump called a "very smart and gracious gesture." Three American detainees were returned to the United States. Republicans called for their president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House released a coin to commemorate the historic occasion. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turned out, just about everything. After a week of escalating tensions following an abrupt reversal of tone from North Korea, President Trump on Thursday sent a letter to Kim Jong-un canceling the summit.

"Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting," Trump wrote.



The relationship began to deteriorate last week, when North Korea released a memo explaining that the nation was not willing to denuclearize in exchange for sanctions relief. The memo also described a "feeling of repugnance" toward National Security Adviser John Bolton, who had repeatedly called for North Korea to denuclearize entirely, citing the agreement the United States reached with Libya in 2003.



Several outlets reported that Trump was angered and confused by the news, and that the president spent the weekend discussing with aides whether it might not be a good idea to go through with the summit at all. The New York Times noted the president was "increasingly concerned" the meeting could be a "political embarrassment," while CNN reported that "some of the president's advisers privately say the chances of the talks occurring grew slimmer."



On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence appeared on Fox News to discuss the issue, noting that North Korea could end up like Libya if a deal is not struck.

"There was some talk about the Libyan model last week, and you know, as the president made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal," Pence said. When it was mentioned that this could be construed as a threat, Pence said: "Well, I think it's more of a fact."



After agreeing to denuclearize in 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by the United States and its allies in 2011. Bolton had repeatedly called for a similar agreement with North Korea, despite North Korea having fiercely criticized Libya for agreeing to denuclearize after Gaddafi's death.



Trump met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Washington the following day to discuss the summit, but it doesn't appear Moon was able to convince the president that North Korea would be receptive to the administration's demands. Speaking to reporters with the South Korean leader at his side, Trump publicly expressed doubt the meeting would take place. "It may not work out for June 12th," Trump said. "If it doesn't happen, maybe it will happen later."



On Thursday morning, Kim made good on his promise to dismantle the site, staging a demolition spectacle in front of a group of international reporters. Several components of the site Punggye-ri in northern North Korea were destroyed with explosives, and although some hailed this as a major step toward denuclearization, others equated the gesture to nothing more than a means of destroying evidence. "The North Koreans have conducted all these tests here, every single weapons test, so if they let experts in to look at these tunnels before they let anyone else in, that would be potentially for us an intelligence boon," Bruce Bechtol, a political science professor who has written several books on North Korea, told CNN. Journalists who attempted to bring in equipment to measure the radiation of the wreckage had their tools confiscated.



But more consequential than the demolition was a statement released the same morning by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, who was none too pleased with the comments made earlier in the week by Vice President Pence. "As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice president," Choe said. "In case the U.S. offends against our good will and clings to unlawful and outrageous acts, I will put forward a suggestion to our supreme leadership for reconsidering the D.P.R.K.-U.S. summit."



Choe also suggested that North Korea is ready to go to war with the United States if the June 12th meeting should fall through. "Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States.” 



Now that meeting has fallen through, and Trump is once again touting America's nuclear capabilities. "You talk about your nuclear capabilities," Trump wrote, "but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used." </s> The White House distanced itself from the hard-line North Korea stance of President Donald Trump’s top security adviser, indicating his administration is committed to keeping next month’s summit with Kim Jong Un on track.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday that she was “not aware” of the administration advocating a so-called Libya model, in which North Korea would quickly ship his nuclear weapons program to the U.S. North Korea had earlier attacked National Security Adviser John Bolton for trying “to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment” and threatened to walk away from the June 12 summit in Singapore.

“I haven’t seen that as a specific thing,” Sanders said. “This is the President Trump model. He is going to run this the way he sees fit.”

The decades-old debate over how and when North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons program has reemerged in the run-up to Trump’s first-of-its-kind meeting with Kim. While Kim has agreed to discuss “denuclearization,” he wants a phased approach and an end to Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of international sanctions.

“The fact that the Trump administration seems to be showing some flexibility is a welcome development because its posture on denuclearization thus far has been too inflexible to lead to a meaningful deal with North Korea,” said Mintaro Oba, a former U.S. State Department official who worked on North Korean issues. “The worst thing the White House could have done was to escalate the situation.”

Financial markets shrugged off concern that talks between the U.S. and North Korea would be derailed. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index was little changed as 12:16 p.m. in Seoul.

Asked later Wednesday if the summit would go ahead, Trump said, “We’ll have to see.” He said that the administration was still pursuing denuclearization and that U.S. officials hadn’t yet been notified of North Korea’s concerns, which were expressed in a statement by First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.

“We haven’t been notified at all,” Trump said.

The Libya approach described by Bolton is particularly controversial in North Korea because leader Muammar Qaddafi was killed by NATO-backed rebels two years after the last remnants of the program were delivered. “World knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq, which have met miserable fate,” Kim Kye Gwan said.

Both Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said the U.S. wants North Korea’s “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.” Pompeo, who has traveled to Pyongyang and met with Kim twice in the past few months, has also indicated the U.S. may initially accept a deal that puts the American homeland out of danger.

“Make no mistake about it: America’s interest here is preventing the risk that North Korea will launch a nuclear weapon into LA or Denver or into the very place we’re sitting here this morning,” Pompeo told Fox News Sunday. </s> When North Korea suddenly threw a historic summit with the United States into question Wednesday, it cited — five times — the fate of another country and another leader, half a world away, as an example of why no one should trust American efforts to disarm another nation.The country was Libya , and the leader was Moammar Gadhafi, who made a bad bet that he could swap his nascent nuclear program for economic integration with the West. That deal, executed by the Bush administration nearly 15 years ago, is a footnote to American histories of that era.But it has always loomed large for the North Koreans.The planned June 12 meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been regarded by disarmament advocates as an opportunity to end decades of animosity between North Korea and the United States.But in the mind of Trump’s new national security adviser, John R. Bolton, who was an architect of the Libya deal, that is the model of how things should play out as the two leaders meet: Complete nuclear disarmament, in return for the promise of economic integration. Bolton said as much last weekend.In issuing its threat to back out of the summit meeting, the North referred to Bolton’s comments, calling them a “Libya mode of nuclear abandonment.”So why is the Libya model suddenly becoming a sticking point in the meeting between Trump and Kim?In 2003, Gadhafi saw the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and may well have concluded he was next. In a lengthy, secret set of negotiations with Britain and the United States, he agreed to voluntarily hand over the equipment he had purchased from A.Q. Khan, a leader of the Pakistani nuclear program. North Korea and Iran had also been customers of Khan, who was later placed under house arrest after his activities were exposed.The Libya material was flown out of the country, much of it placed at an American weapons laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. When President George W. Bush announced the deal, he made a clear reference to North Korea and Iran when he said, “I hope other leaders will find an example” in Libya’s action.What happened less than a decade later might be at the heart of what Kim appears to fear.The United States and its European allies began a military action against Libya in 2011 to prevent Gadhafi’s threatened massacre of civilians. President Barack Obama acceded to arguments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to join the European-led action.But no one in the Situation Room debated what message the decision to turn on Gadhafi might send to other countries the United States was trying to persuade to relinquish their weapons, according to interviews conducted later with more than a half-dozen people engaged in the discussion.The Libya intervention allowed anti-government rebels to put Gadhafi on the run, and months later they pulled him from a ditch and killed him. Since then, Libya has devolved into a dysfunctional state. And North Korea has taken notice.North Korea’s fear of meeting the same fate as Libya — or maybe more specifically its leader meeting the same fate as Gadhafi — has appeared to factor into North Korea’s thinking about its own weapons program for years.In 2011, after the United States and allies launched airstrikes in Libya, North Korea’s foreign minister said the denuclearization of the North African nation had been an “an invasion tactic to disarm the country.”After Gadhafi was killed, the narrative in North Korea became clear: Had he not surrendered his nuclear program, North Korean officials said, he might still be alive.In 2016, shortly after North Korea conducted a nuclear test, its state-run news outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, made direct reference to Libya and Iraq. “History proves that powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders’ aggression,” the agency said.“The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Gaddafi regime in Libya could not escape the fate of destruction after being deprived of their foundations for nuclear development and giving up nuclear programs of their own accord,” it said.But North Korea was also clear to draw a line between itself and the two nations. Its statement on Wednesday said it was off base to suggest that the “dignified state” of North Korea could share the same destiny as Libya or Iraq, which “collapsed due to yielding the whole of their countries to big powers.”“The world knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq, which have met miserable fates,” the statement said. The North made explicit reference to a homegrown achievement that Gadhafi never neared: It had already become a nuclear-armed country.Unlike North Korea, Libya was not actually a nuclear weapons state. During inspections in 2003, the Americans discovered Libya had centrifuges that could be used to produce highly enriched uranium — fuel for a bomb.“It is absolutely absurd to dare compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya, which had been at the initial state of nuclear development,” the North Korean statement said, using the initials for the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.North Korea has tested six nuclear weapons, and U.S. intelligence agencies believe it has 20 to 60 more, as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States.North Korea’s statement Wednesday also made direct reference to Bolton.In his first televised interviews after becoming national security adviser last month, Bolton told “Face the Nation” on CBS and “Fox News Sunday” that Libya’s denuclearization was what he envisioned when moving ahead with North Korea talks.“We have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004,” he said on Fox. “There are obviously differences. The Libyan program was much smaller, but that was basically the agreement that we made.”When a reporter asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, specifically about the Libya model and if the administration’s approach to North Korea would be the same, she backed away from Bolton’s comparison.“I haven’t seen that as part of any discussions, so I am not aware that that’s a model that we are using,” Sanders said Wednesday. “There is not a cookie cutter on how this works.” </s> Washington: US President Donald Trump has named former ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton as his new National Security Adviser replacing Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, media reports said.

The President announced the news in a tweet on Thursday, saying that Bolton would take the job starting April 9, making him Trump’s third National Security Adviser in the first 14 months of his presidency, reports The Washington Post. “I (am) pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job and will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/19,” he tweeted.

Bolton’s appointment does not require Senate confirmation. Following Trum’s tweet, McMaster said in a statement released by the White House: “After 34 years of service to our nation, I am requesting retirement from the US Army effective this summer after which I will leave public service… I am thankful to President Donald Trump for the opportunity to serve him and our nation as National Security Adviser.”

Trump and Bolton have been discussing for weeks how he could replace McMaster, CNN quoted an informed source as saying. Shortly after the news broke, Bolton said on Fox News that he was not expecting an announcement to be made Thursday afternoon. According to the source, Trump and Bolton had met earlier on Thursday.

Bolton’s hard edged, hawkish views on issues like North Korea, Iraq and Syria make him a controversial pick especially ahead of a proposed meeting between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Bolton is a fierce North Korea hawk who, in his prolific writings and television commentary, has said that pre-emptive war would likely be the only way to stop North Korea from obtaining the capability to attack the US with a nuclear missile, reports The Washington Post.

Bolton had touted “the legal case for striking North Korea first” in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. However, Bolton, who had dismissed negotiations with North Korea as a waste of time, moderated his views slightly after Trump announced he would sit down with Kim, suggesting that the encounter between the two leaders would be short and largely devoid of traditional diplomacy.

Regarding Iran, Bolton told Fox News in January that Trump should dump the nuclear deal, re-impose economic sanctions on Tehran and work toward an overthrow of the government there. Bolton had previously served in the George W. Bush administration in a key arms-control job. </s> The White House said Wednesday that it "fully expected" threats by North Korea to potentially cancel Kim Jong Un 's meeting with President Donald Trump . In a series of statements this week, the country's state media agency said Kim was considering pulling out of the summit due to joint air force drills taking place in South Korea."This is something that we fully expected," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at the White House today. "The president is very used to being ready for tough negotiations and if they want to meet, we'll be ready, and if they don't, that's okay, too."Hours later, President Trump reacted to the statements for the first time when pressed by reporters in an Oval Office meeting alongside Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev."We haven't been notified at all," Trump said. "We'll have to see. We haven't seen anything, we haven't heard anything. We will see what happens."North Korea's announcement, issued Tuesday evening by state news organization KCNA, appeared to catch the State Department off guard, with spokesperson Heather Nauert telling reporters the U.S. had not heard from North Korea directly before the announcement.Earlier Wednesday, Sanders clarified the administration's plan if the summit were to be canceled."We're going to continue with the campaign of maximum pressure if that's the case," Sanders said. "But like I said if they want to meet, the president will certainly be ready and we'll be prepared. If not, that's okay."Sanders also appeared to distance the Trump administration from comments its national security adviser, John Bolton, made this past Sunday regarding the denuclearization model being pursued on the Korean peninsula.Bolton has repeatedly said that the administration plans to pursue "the Libya model," which calls for a strict monitoring and inspection plan to ensure North Korea has denuclearized.North Korea's first vice minister for foreign affairs, Kim Kye Gwan, directly criticized the model in a lengthy statement Wednesday night, accusing U.S. officials of "provoking" the country with "unbridled remarks.""High-ranking officials of the White House and the Department of State including Bolton, White House national security adviser, are letting loose the assertions of so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment," the statement read."The U.S. is miscalculating the magnanimity and broad-minded initiatives of the DPRK as signs of weakness and trying to embellish and advertise as if these are the product of its sanctions and pressure," the statement added. "It is ridiculous comedy to see the Trump administration, claiming to take a different road from the previous administration, still clings to the outdated policy on the DPRK."Sanders told reporters gathered in the North Lawn driveway at the White House Wednesday that the Libya model is not a part of any administration policy she's aware of."I haven't seen that as part of any discussions, I'm not aware that that's a model that we're using," Sanders said. "Again, this is the President Trump model. He's gonna run this the way he sees fit. We're 100 percent confident -- as we've said many times before, as you all know, you're aware -- he's the best negotiator, and we're very confident in that."The episode has drawn parallels to the breakdown in the Bush Administration's nuclear negotiations with North Korea in 2008. At the time, Kim's father, Kim Jong Il , balked at requests for a strict inspections program similar to what President George W. Bush had utilized to eliminate Libya's nuclear program in 2003 and 2004."There's not a cookie-cutter model on how this works," Sanders said in response to Bolton's championing of that model. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea’s national security adviser was in Washington on Wednesday for his first meeting with his new American counterpart, John Bolton, U.S. officials said, amid preparations for separate U.S. and South Korean summits with North Korea.

Chung Eui-yong, who is due to see Bolton on Thursday, led the South Korean delegation that met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month and then traveled to the United States to convey to President Donald Trump a summit invitation from Kim.

Trump accepted. He said on Monday that he planned to meet Kim in May or early June and hoped the discussions would ultimately lead to an end of the North’s nuclear weapons program.

A White House official confirmed Chung’s planned meeting with Bolton. The South Korean embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Korean officials are wary about Trump’s appointment of Bolton, known for his hawkish views, to replace H.R. McMaster as U.S. national security adviser.

Bolton, a 69-year-old former Fox News analyst and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who took up his new post on Monday, has in the past called for regime change in North Korea and has previously been rejected as a negotiating partner by Pyongyang.

Bolton said last month after he was named to his new role that the United States must use the summit to “cut to the chase” on the denuclearization issue and accused Pyongyang of seeking to “buy more time” through talks with the United States to develop its nuclear weapons.

Japanese national security adviser Shotaro Yachi was also expected to visit Washington to meet Bolton ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s talks with Trump next week, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said. A spokesman at the Japanese embassy said he could not confirm this.
New US National Security Advisor John R. Bolton says that President Donald Trump should insist on Libya-styled denuclearization for North Korea.