North Korea cancelled meeting with Mike Pence at the last moment

US vice president Mike Pence was scheduled to meet the North Korean officials while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics. However, the North Koreans called off the meeting barely two hours before it was set to start.

In a statement, Pence's officials tried to salvage the situation by saying that the meeting was cancelled because Pence had condemned North Korea's abuse of human rights.

"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," Pence's Chief of Staff Nick Ayers said in a statement.

Ayers claimed that after Pence announced plans for new economic sanctions, North Korea "walked away from a meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down."

PENCE OFFICIALS' SCATHING RESPONSE

This meet would have been the first of its kind between senior officials from the Trump administration and Pyongyang, which are in a standoff over the North's development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting



the United States.

"The President made a decision that if they wanted to talk, we would deliver our uncompromising message. If they asked for a meeting, we would meet," Ayers said in the statement.

"He also made clear that until they agreed to complete denuclearisation we weren't going to change any of our positions or negotiate," he said.

Ayers' statement soon turned scathing:

"This [US] administration will stand in the way of Kim's desire to whitewash their murderous regime with nice photo ops at the Olympics. Perhaps that's why they walked away from a meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down."

- Pence's Chief of Staff Nick Ayers

Pence had criticised Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions and announced the "toughest and most aggressive" sanctions against Pyongyang yet, all while moving to strengthen alliance with Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un, through sister Kim Yo Jong, has invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang to begin talks "soon."