WASHINGTON — President Trump on
Thursday pulled out of a highly
anticipated summit meeting with Kim
Jong-un, accusing the North Koreans of
bad faith and lamenting that “this
missed opportunity is a truly sad
moment in history.”

The president made his announcement
in a remarkably personal, at times
mournful-sounding letter to Mr. Kim,
North Korea’s leader, in which he cited
the North’s “tremendous anger and open
hostility” in recent public statements as
the specific reason for canceling the
meeting.

Mr. Trump said later that the meeting,
which had been scheduled for June 12 in
Singapore, could still happen, and North
Korea issued a strikingly conciliatory
response, saying it hoped Mr. Trump
would reconsider.

The president emphasized that
conciliatory tone with a tweet early
Friday, saying “the warm and
productive statement from North Korea”
could lead “hopefully to long and
enduring prosperity and peace.”
But Mr. Trump also renewed talk of
military action against the North and
vowed to keep pressing economic
sanctions, guaranteeing that for now, at
least, his unlikely courtship of Mr. Kim
will give way to a more familiar cycle of
threats and tension.

The mixed messages were in keeping
with a diplomatic gambit that had an air
of unreality from the start, when, in
early March, Mr. Trump spontaneously
accepted Mr. Kim’s invitation to meet —
an acceptance that North Korea did not
even publicly acknowledge for several
days.
As the date for the meeting drew closer,
American and North Korean officials
staked out deeply divergent positions on
how quickly the North should surrender
its nuclear arsenal. North Korean
officials failed to show up for a
planning meeting last week in
Singapore, snubbing a White House
advance team led by the deputy chief of
staff, Joe Hagin.

“The unilateral cancellation of the
summit was unexpected and very
regrettable,” said Kim Kye-gwan, a vice
foreign minister of North Korea. But he
said the North remained “willing to sit
down with the United States any time, in
any format, to resolve the problems.”
Later Thursday in Washington, Kang
Kyung-wha, the South Korean foreign
minister, and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo spoke via telephone and agreed
to continue working toward creating the
right conditions for the United States and
North Korea to talk, South Korea’s
Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement said that Mr. Pompeo had
stressed a willingness to continue
dialogue with North Korea.
Hours before Mr. Trump’s
announcement, North Korea had blown
up an underground nuclear testing site
before foreign journalists gathered to
witness the demolition. It was the latest
in a series of gestures by the North
meant to smooth the way for a summit
meeting.

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source=> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/asia/north-korea-trump-summit.