China hopes Kim-Trump talks will happen as planned

Beijing, May 16 (Agencies): China said Wednesday that North Korea and the United States should hold their historic summit as planned after Pyongyang threatened to pull out of the highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump.

"The situation on the peninsula has eased up, which is worth cherishing," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing.

"We hope... some of the high-level meetings that (the two sides) have been working towards can be held smoothly and... results can be achieved," he said.

"Only in this way can the easing up of the peninsula be consolidated, contributing to peace and stability in the region."

It is a sudden and dramatic return to the rhetoric of the past by Pyongyang, after months of rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the flashpoint peninsula.

In the past, North Korea has demanded the withdrawal of US troops stationed in the South to protect it from its neighbour, and an end to Washington's nuclear umbrella over its security ally.

"All parties concerned should express goodwill toward each other, avoid mutual provocations and further tension, so that they can jointly provide the necessary conditions and atmosphere for a political settlement of the peninsula issue through dialog," Lu said.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has met Kim twice over the last two months, as Beijing warms up to its Cold War-era ally following a chill in relations.

Meanwhile, North Korea on Wednesday threatened to scrap a historic summit next month between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and U.S. President Donald Trump, saying it has no interest in a "one-sided" affair meant to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons.

The warning by North Korea's first vice foreign minister came hours after the country abruptly canceled a high-level meeting with South Korea to protest U.S.-South Korean military exercises that Pyongyang has long claimed are invasion rehearsals.

The surprise moves appear to cool what had been an unusual flurry of outreach from a country that last year conducted a provocative series of weapons tests that had many fearing the region was on the edge of war. Analysts said it's unlikely that North Korea intends to scuttle all diplomacy. More likely, they said, is that Pyongyang wants to gain leverage ahead of the talks between Kim and Trump, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

"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 and this would force us to reconsider whether we would accept the North Korea-U.S. summit meeting," the first vice foreign minister, Kim Kye Gwan, said in a statement carried by state media.

He criticized recent comments by Trump's top security adviser, John Bolton, and other U.S. officials who have said the North should follow the "Libyan model" of nuclear disarmament and provide a "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement." He also took issue with U.S. views that the North should fully relinquish its biological and chemical weapons.

Some analysts say bringing up Libya, which dismantled its rudimentary nuclear programme in the 2000s in exchange for sanctions relief, jeopardizes progress in negotiations with the North.