North Korea Says It Will Give Trump ‘Time and Opportunity’ to Reconsider

SEOUL, South Korea — Hours after President Donald Trump canceled a summit with its leader, Kim Jong Un, North Korea said on Friday it was still willing to give Trump “time and opportunity” to reconsider his decision, saying that Kim had held great expectations for the meeting.

“The unilateral cancellation of the summit was unexpected and very regrettable,” said Kim Kye Gwan, a vice foreign minister of North Korea, in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “But we remain unchanged in our willingness to do everything we can for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and of the humanity, so with a broad and open mind, we are willing to give the United States time and opportunity.”

With its carefully worded statement, North Korea appeared to shift the blame to the United States while trying to create an impression that it was the North Korean leader, and not Trump, who was the mature statesman trying to salvage the diplomatic process.

Trump, in a surprise announcement, said Thursday that he was pulling out of the June 12 summit with Kim in Singapore. The American president cited North Korea’s recent expressions of hostility in making his decision, which was delivered to the North’s leader in a letter.

Kim, the vice foreign minister, said North Korea remained “willing to sit down with the United States any time, in any format, to resolve the problems.”

“We have been internally giving President Trump a high score for making a decision any other American president couldn’t and for exerting efforts to make a historic summit event happen,” he said. “Our chairman too has been making preparations, saying that if he meets with President Trump, it will be a good beginning.”

The vice minister said the “tremendous anger and open hostility” that Trump complained about in his letter was the North Korean way of protesting Washington’s demand for “a unilateral nuclear dismantlement.”

“This unfortunate turn of event shows how serious is the deep-rooted problem between North Korea and the United States and why a summit meeting is so urgently needed,” the vice foreign minister said. But now North Korea, he said, was left wondering whether Trump “lacked a will or self-confidence” to deal with the North Koreans.