False starts and failures on North Korea: the long road to the planned summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un

Since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, relations between the Koreas have been marked by wild swings, with three historic summits mixed with hostility that often pushed the rivals to the brink of a major conflict

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:19pm, 16 May 2018Updated: 8:24pm, 16 May 2018

No, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un isn’t killing his summit with US President Donald Trump. Or at least, he’s highly unlikely to.

Pyongyang breaking off a high-level meeting with Seoul and threatening to scrap next month’s historic summit with Washington over regular allied military drills is seen as a move by Kim to gain leverage and establish that he’s entering the crucial nuclear negotiations from a position of strength.

Washington and Seoul, which have no intentions to overpay for whatever Kim brings to the table, have been saying strengthened international sanctions forced Kim into talks after a flurry of weapons tests.

Pyongyang has now countered by saying it won’t be unilaterally pressured into abandoning its nukes, analysts say.

Nonetheless, North Korea’s surprise declaration on Wednesday was a fresh reminder of many false starts and failures that derailed previous diplomatic attempts to resolve the decades-long stand-off. It’s also a frustrating development for South Korea, which has been selling last month’s inter-Korean summit – where the leaders issued a vague vow for the “complete denuclearisation” of their peninsula – as a meaningful breakthrough in peace.

Watch: North Korea threatens to cancel Trump-Kim summit