North Korea's reaction to comments by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was the "last straw" that led the White House to cancel President Donald Trump's planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a White House official said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
North Korea's vice foreign minister called remarks by Pence about North Korea stupid and suggested the two countries could either meet for a summit or for a nuclear showdown.
Those comments came after Pence said in an interview with Fox News on Monday that the interaction with North Korea could "end like the Libya Model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal."
The White House official said Thursday that, after the North Korean reaction to those comments, senior administration officials at the highest levels held discussions that eventually led to the cancellation of the summit.
A second White House official said the threat of a nuclear conflict was a major factor in Trump walking away from the meeting with Kim.
"The North Koreans literally threatened nuclear war in the statement released last night. No summit could be successful under these circumstances," she said, according to Reuters.
The State Department transmitted Trump's letter announcing the cancellation to North Korea through existing channels.
The first White House official said there was still hope for peace with North Korea but the country needed to change its rhetoric to get there.
"There is a backdoor that's open still if the North Koreans are willing to walk through it. But it involves some changing of their rhetoric ... at a minimum," he said.
"I don't think that hope is entirely gone, but obviously more needs to be done before we get in a place that's better."
Trump earlier cited the Pyongyang government’s “open hostility” towards the U.S. in recent statements.
The two leaders had been scheduled to hold the historic meeting at a summit on June 12 in Singapore.
The president’s letter to Kim Jong Un was released a day after Trump hinted that the June 12 summit could be delayed.
"It may not work out for June 12," the president said at a White House meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. "If it does not happen, maybe it will happen later."
"There are certain conditions we want to happen. I think we'll get those conditions. And if we don't, we won't have the meeting. You never know about deals," Trump continued. "I've made a lot of deals. You never really know."
North Korea last week said that the summit between Trump and Kim is at risk because of joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea.
An official in Pyongyang also stated that the summit was in jeopardy because Kim was angered by national security adviser John Bolton's suggestion that the Trump administration could use a “Libya model” with North Korea.
“If the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said.
Pyongyang also canceled at the last minute a high-level meeting with the South in protest over joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.