Source: BBC
US President Donald Trump has just cancelled what would have been a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The shock move could undo months of diplomatic effort and throws the future of the Korean peninsula back into doubt.
What just happened?
The 12 June meeting was supposed to discuss ways of reducing the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula. It would have been historic – the first time a sitting US president had met their North Korean counterpart.
Past days, though, had seen increasing hostility and a certain lack of diplomatic courtesy from both sides, casting doubt over whether the summit would go ahead.
On Thursday, Mr Trump sent a letter to Mr Kim saying that he wouldn’t be going. He blamed North Korea’s “tremendous anger and open hostility”.
While both Washington and Pyongyang have said there is still a chance for talks at a later stage, they have also brought back aggressive military threats against the other.
How did we get here?
Last year saw seen tensions between North Korea and the US reach worrying levels, with threats of mutual nuclear destruction and petty name calling. North Korea carried out its largest ever nuclear weapon test and repeatedly fired off missiles.
1 January 2018 brought an unexpected turn, when Kim Jong-un reached out to South Korea.
After lots of careful negotiations, North Korea took part in the Winter Olympics in the South, and Mr Kim said he was willing to sit down with the US to talk denuclearisation.
What followed was a historic meeting between North and South Korea where they agreed to end hostilities and work together towards denuclearisation.
The world eagerly awaited the next event: direct talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. That was finally confirmed two weeks ago.
In the run-up North Korea released three US detainees and blew up its nuclear testing site as gestures of good intent.
Where did it all go wrong?
After the initial enthusiasm though, the actual preparations for the summit proved to be – predictably – difficult.
While the stated goal was denuclearisation, it soon became clear that Pyongyang and Washington were not exactly on the same page over what that meant.
For the US it appeared to mean complete and irreversible dismantling of the North’s nuclear programme and weapons, allowing international inspectors to check every step of that process, before any talk of sanctions being lifted.
For North Korea, it meant a much more reciprocal progress. If Pyongyang was to give up its nuclear asset, it wanted to see similar gestures from Washington.
The US has a large military presence in South Korea and in Japan – both of which North Korea would expect to be scaled down, along with assurances that its survival as a state would never be in question.
