North Korea threatened Wednesday to cancel the forthcoming summit between leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump if Washington presses ahead with its key demand for Pyongyang to unilaterally give up its nuclear arsenal.
If the Trump administration "corners us and unilaterally demands we give up nuclear weapons we will no longer have an interest in talks and will have to reconsider whether we will accept the upcoming DPRK-US summit", first vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
It comes as Pyongyang cancelled high-level talks due Wednesday with Seoul over the Max Thunder joint military exercises being held between the United States and South Korea, denouncing the drills as a "rude and wicked provocation".
"There is a limit in showing goodwill and offering opportunity," the North's official news agency KCNA said earlier.
The drills between the two allies' air forces were a rehearsal for invasion and "a deliberate military provocation" at a time when inter-Korean relations were warming, it added.
"The US will have to think twice about the fate of the DPRK-US summit," KCNA said, referring to the North by its official acronym.
Washington said it will continue to plan the meeting in Singapore on June 12, with State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert telling reporters it had received "no notification" of a position change by North Korea.
The exercises were "not provocative" and would continue, she added.
