South Korea vows to help fix Kim Jong-un’s bust-up with Donald Trump as world holds its breath over historic talks

SOUTH Korea has vowed to help fix Kim Jong-un’s latest bust-up with Donald Trump as the world holds its breath over historic US-North Korea nuclear weapons talks.

Pyongyang yesterday threatened to scrap next month's meeting between the two leaders, saying it has no interest in America’s "one-sided" demands.

The North also broke off a high-level meeting with South Korea to protest against annual US-South Korean military exercises taking place this week.

And North Korean officials today said there might be no more talks if the exercises continue.

Ri Son-gwon, a North Korean official handling inter-Korea affairs, today said: "Unless the serious situation which led to the suspension of the north-south high-level talks is settled, it will never be easy to sit face-to-face again with the present regime of South Korea."

But South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC), which brokered the talks between Kim and Trump, has now promised to step in to keep the meeting on track.

The council said it would "closely mediate using multiple communication channels with the United States and North Korea so that the summit can proceed successfully".

The NSC also urged the North to faithfully abide by the agreements reached between South Korean president Moon Jae-in and Kim at their summit last month.

The two Korean leaders that day issued a promise on the "complete denuclearisation" of their peninsula and pledged permanent peace.

There had seemed to be serious progress between the countries in recent weeks, with North Korea releasing several US prisoners.

Satellite images also appeared to show Kim was dismantling his nuclear test site ahead of the meeting.

And there were reports today that Pyongyang had provided a list of its nuclear bases to the Americans.

Bloomberg reporter Jihye Lee tweeted: “North Korea and the US exchanged a ‘list of nuclear facilities’ when Mike Pompeo first visited Pyongyang in March.

“North Korea was shown what the US knew of the locations, and the regime showed internal documents to ‘cross-check’.”

But the rhetoric seems to have taken a step backwards in recent days, with North Korea's chief negotiator today calling the South Korean government "ignorant and incompetent".

And North Korean first vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan yesterday said: “We are no longer interested in a negotiation that will be all about driving us into a corner and making a one-sided demand for us to give up our nukes.

“And this would force us to reconsider whether we would accept the North Korea-US summit meeting.”

He also blasted recent comments by Trump's top security adviser, John Bolton, who said the North should follow the "Libyan model" of nuclear disarmament and provide a "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement".

Kim is known to be terrified of ending up murdered like Gaddafi if he gives up his nukes.

And he took issue with US views that the North should fully relinquish its biological and chemical weapons.

Despite the latest verbal volleys, analysts believe the talks – scheduled for June 12 in Singapore – will still go ahead.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration is "still hopeful" that the summit will take place.

She added that threats from North Korea to scrap the meeting were "something that we fully expected".

When Trump was asked about if the summit would still go ahead, he was more coy, saying: "We'll see what happens".

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