North Korea cancelled the possibility of meeting with US, say White House Officials

NewsBharati 21-Feb-2018

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Washington, February 21: Washington has blamed North Korea for canceling the historic meet between the countries during Winter Olympics. As per US officials statement, US Vice-President Mike Pence was due to meet North Korean officials at the Winter Olympics last week, but North Korea backed out at last moment.

Pictures of Winter Olympics showed US VP Pence sat just a row from Kim Yo Jong and other high-ranking members of the delegation. But they did not talk. White House Officials say North Korea was interested to talk but at last, moment canceled it. If it happened, it would have been the first official interaction between North Korea and the Trump administration.

"At the last minute, DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] officials decided not to go forward with the meeting. We regret their failure to seize this opportunity," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

“North Korea would have strongly preferred the Vice President not use the world stage to call attention to those absolute facts or to display our strong alliance with those committed to the maximum pressure campaign,” said Nick Ayers, the vice president’s chief of staff.

He added, North Korea “dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics".

US and many other analysts blamed North Korea for using Winter Olympics as their propaganda stage as well as trying to improve their international image. However, North has invited South for a summit, and South Korea President Moon Jae-in is considering to accept the invitation.