A North Korean official on Wednesday threatened to cancel what was set to be an unprecedented and historic meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, saying that it is not interested in a meeting focused solely on denuclearization.

In a statement Wednesday, North Korea's vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said that the country would reconsider the summit if the US insists on making a "one-sided demand" that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons.

"We will appropriately respond to the Trump administration if it approaches the North Korea-U.S. summit meeting with a truthful intent to improve relations," Kim said in the statement, published by North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA. "But we are no longer interested in a negotiation that will be all about driving us into a corner and making a one-sided demand for us to give up our nukes."

The statement accused the US of "trying to impose our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq," taking specific aim at White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has said the White House is considering a "Libya model" for nuclear disarmament.

The North Korean regime has, perhaps understandably, rejected the comparison. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011 after agreeing to give his country's chemical weapons, and dismantling nuclear and chemical weapons programs.

“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,” Kim said in his statement Wednesday.

However, the statement stopped short of declaring that North Korea would pull out of its planned meeting with the US, which is scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore.



The news followed reports Tuesday that North Korea had canceled scheduled talks with South Korea — a day before the two countries were set to meet. According to North Korea's Central News Agency, the talks were cancelled in response to military drills currently being conducted by the US and South Korea, which North Korean officials called a "provocation."

In Washington, the US State Department said Tuesday that it had not heard directly that North Korea was considering pulling out of next month's talks.

"We have not heard anything from that government or the Government of South Korea to indicate that we would not continue conducting these exercises or that we would not continue planning for our meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un next month," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," she added. "We need to verify it."