A high-stakes meeting between Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s righthand man was shelved on Wednesday, marking a potential setback in nuclear disarmament talks.

The planned meeting on Thursday in New York with Kim Yong Chol, a former intelligence chief, had been billed as an opportunity to get stalled negotiations on North Korean denuclearisation back on track.

Pyongyang and Washington have been at loggerheads over the pace of dismantling the North’s nuclear missiles’ programme since the two countries’ leaders agreed at a historic Singapore summit in June to move towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea’s foreign ministry warned over the weekend that Pyongyang would “seriously” consider reviving its nuclear weapons programme unless US sanctions are lifted, but Mr Pompeo dismissed the threat as “rhetoric” and said he expected “real progress” from the New York meeting.

Those plans were abruptly halted on Wednesday by an announcement from the state department that the meeting had been postponed and would be rescheduled “when our respective schedules permit.”