MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - It is too early to talk about the risk of the U.S.-North Korea summit being disrupted, and the likelihood that it will take place is about 70%, Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov said.
"It is too early to talk about the summit's potential cancellation: if the organizers promise a successful show to the American leader, everything will happen. But if the triumph would have to be shared, then [U.S. President Donald] Trump might back out at the last moment. I would assess the situation as 70 to 30 in favor of the summit," Kosachyov told Interfax on Wednesday in comments on Trump's remark that his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be postponed.
"The messages from Washington that the meeting between the U.S. and North Korean leaders could be delayed should be seen as the White House's customary tactic of preparatory blackmail and pressure, as it needs not so much a practical result as a presentation of the success of this approach: pressured, came, conquered," he said.
This is precisely why "the summit has been preceded by preconditions and the other side has been openly pressured - as well-informed people say, Trump used the same tactic in his business dealings, as well," Kosachyov said.
Trump's gambles on North Korea, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinian-Israeli settlement process prompt other countries, including the U.S.' allies, to make concessions simply to retain what they still have, he said.
"But it's interesting to see what exactly is being used by way of pressure: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence threatened Pyongyang that if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal, this can only end like the Libyan model ended," Kosachyov said.
"I invite the world to take notice of this important 'coming-out' by one of the top American politicians: it's been officially acknowledged that the West's humanitarian and other interventions in 'spontaneous' processes and 'color revolutions' have been not for the sake of 'the oppressed and protesting' but are a banal tool the U.S. uses to promote its interests: whoever doesn't do what we want will have a coup and might even be killed, to the sound of Washington politicos saying 'wow,'" he said.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Trump had said his meeting with Kim might be postponed.
"There's a very substantial chance that it won't work out" for June 12, as planned, Trump said.
"If it doesn't happen, maybe it happens later," he said.
"We will see what happens. [...] It has a chance to be a great, great meeting for North Korea and a great meeting for the world," Trump said.
"There is a very substantial chance that it won't work out, and that's OK. But that doesn't mean it won't work out over a period of time," he said.
However, Trump insisted that the White House was continuing preparations for the meeting scheduled to take place in Singapore on June 12.
North Korean media reported last week that Pyongyang might cancel the summit over U.S.-South Korean joint exercises.