A man watches a TV screen showing U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station. Ahn Young-joon | AP

No Libya-style denuclearization

Recent "unbridled remarks" from Washington prior to the June 12 meeting constituted signs of "unjust" behavior, Kim Kye Gwan stated. Specifically naming National Security Advisor John Bolton, the North Korean minister said U.S. officials are "letting loose the assertions of so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment" and discussing a formula of "abandoning nuclear weapons first [and] compensating afterwards." That amounts to "awfully sinister" moves to impose on North Korea "the destiny of Libya or Iraq, which had been collapsed due to yielding the whole of their countries to big powers," the minister said, stressing that Pyongyang rejects Libya-style denuclearization. Libya voluntarily gave up its nuclear ambitions in 2003 in order to get out from under economic sanctions. The country's dictator Moammar Gadhafi was eventually overthrown in a Western-supported coup and killed in 2011. North Korea considers nuclear weapons equally important as economic growth so "without the nukes as cover, should it ever want to coerce or invade the South again, it really has nothing to bail themselves out," according to King.

Different definitions of the term denuclearization is seen as a major obstacle to negotiations. For the U.S., the concept entails North Korea giving up its entire nuclear arsenal— but Pyongyang may agree to that only if certain conditions are fulfilled, experts warn. Those prerequisites include terminating America's military presence in South Korea as well as ending the U.S. regional nuclear umbrella. If Kim does withdraw from the June 12 meeting, it wouldn't be the first instance of Pyongyang reversing on its commitments. The isolated state has duped multiple U.S. presidential administrations, each of which has passed the North Korea problem onto the next. Under a 1994 deal with President Bill Clinton's administration, Pyongyang committed to freezing its illicit plutonium weapons program but in 2002, the North once again began operating nuclear facilities. North Korea will never agree to economic trade with the U.S. in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons, according to Kim Kye Gwan, who warned that Trump "will be recorded as more tragic and unsuccessful president than his predecessors" if he follows in the steps of previous U.S. leaders.

Watch: How the miserable death of Moammar Gadhafi factors into Kim Jong Un's nuclear ambitions