South Korean official: ‘99.9 percent chance’ that Trump-Kim summit moves forward

South Korea’s top national security official said Monday that there is a “99.9 percent chance” that a planned meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore will go off without a hitch.

Chung Eui-yong, national security adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, played down reports that the June 12 talks could be on shaky ground, but acknowledged that Seoul was “preparing for many different possibilities.”

“We believe there is a 99.9 percent chance the North Korea-U.S. summit will be held as scheduled,” Chung told reporters during a flight to Washington. “But we’re just preparing for many different possibilities.”

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Chung’s comments were reported by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency on Tuesday.

The remarks come days after Pyongyang canceled talks with South Korea, citing concerns about Seoul’s joint military exercises with the U.S. The North also threatened to back out of the summit with Trump if the U.S. insisted on “unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

Chung sought to quell speculation that the talks could collapse. He told reporters that Seoul and Washington were coordinating closely ahead of the talks, and that the two countries were prepared to steer the discussion “in a direction that we want.”

“South Korea and the U.S. have been sharing every bit of information and have remained in close coordination with each other,” Chung said, according to Yonhap. “We’ve had various working-level discussions on how to steer North Korea in a direction that we want, and I expect [Moon and Trump] will have great talks this time.”

He also dismissed a New York Times report that Trump had been pressing his aides and political allies about whether he should take the risk of moving forward with the talks with Kim.

“During phone calls between our two leaders or talks between our National Security Councils, I never got such an impression,” Chung said.