North Korea Dropped Out of Meeting With Pence at Last Minute, U.S. Says
During his visit to Asia, Mr. Pence did not rule out a possible meeting, but vowed to use any encounter with the North Koreans to drive home Washington’s demand
that Pyongyang "once and for all abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions." While Mr. Pence was reiterating Washington’s position, North Korea stole headlines in the South and beyond with a surprise message of dialogue and reconciliation.
While Mr. Pence and Ms. Kim were in South Korea, Mr. Moon’s government publicly called for dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.
Nauert said that The vice president was ready to take this opportunity to drive home the
necessity of North Korea abandoning its illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs,
Mr. Pence’s meeting with the North Koreans was to occur after the vice president had warned
that the country was about to face the "toughest and most aggressive" set of United States sanctions yet, though he did not detail what those would be.
20, 2018
Vice President Mike Pence had planned to secretly meet with a high-level delegation of North Korean leaders while he was at the Winter Olympics in South Korea this month,
but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, according to the State Department.
performance in South Korea last week," said Lee Sung-yoon, a Korea expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.