Washington (CNN) The White House on Wednesday downplayed comments by national security adviser John Bolton, who recently invoked Libya's decision to denuclearize during the Bush administration as a model for US policy on North Korea, potentially placing a planned US-North Korea summit in jeopardy.

Hours earlier , a North Korean official said Bolton's remarks were indicative of an "awfully sinister move" to imperil the Kim regime. North Korea stunned Washington on Tuesday by threatening to abandon talks between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un if Washington insists on pushing it "into a corner" on nuclear disarmament.

Referring to the Libya comparison, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that she hadn't "seen that as part of any discussions so I'm not aware that that's a model that we're using.

"I haven't seen that that's a specific thing. I know that that comment was made. There's not a cookie cutter model on how this would work."

She continued, "This is the President Trump model. He's going to run this the way he sees fit. We're 100% confident, as we've said many times before, as I'm sure you're all aware, he's the best negotiator and we're very confident on that front."

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