North Korea Officials Canceled Meeting with Pence During Winter Olympics

The office of Vice President Mike Pence confirmed Tuesday that there was a meeting scheduled with North Korean officials while the vice president was in Pyeongchang, South Korea, during the Winter Olympics earlier this month, but the North Koreans canceled.

According to The Washington Post, which was the first to report on the meeting and its subsequent cancellation, Pence and his aides were slated to meet February 10 with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, and North Korea’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong-nam. However, the North Koreans called off the meeting a couple hours before it was set to take place.

“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,” Nick Ayers, the vice president’s chief of staff, said in a statement.

The Post reported that the meeting was in the works for a couple weeks, and was scheduled before Pence departed for his trip through Asia on February 5. Pence was expected to use the meeting to vocalize the Trump administration’s stance against North Korea.

Pence’s announcement of future sanctions, as well as his meeting with North Korean defectors, resulted in Pyongyang canceling the meeting.

“We regret [the North Koreans’] failure to seize this opportunity,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement.

“We will not apologize for American values, for calling attention to human rights abuses, or for mourning a young American’s unjust death,” she added, referring to Otto Warmbier, who died after being arrested in North Korea, and whose father Pence met with during the Olympics.

Before the Olympics started, Pence said that he intended to use his appearance at the opening ceremonies to push back against any favorable media narrative the North Koreans generated by attending the Winter Games.

Pence stated that the Trump administration wanted to start talks with North Korea, but will not stop with pressuring them to end their nuclear program.