North Korea bailed at the last minute before a secret meeting with Pence at the Winter Olympics

• North Korea pulled out of a secret meeting with the US Vice President Mike Pence during the Olympic Games.
• The delegates from North Korea were upset by Pence's decision to meet defectors and for announcing new sanctions, his office confirmed.
• The secret meeting was locked in before Pence departed on his tour of Asia, contradicting the State Department's claims that there were no plans for the vice president to meet with North Korea.
• While the meeting didn't eventuate, the situation highlights the two countries not only have the ability to communicate but are in fact doing so.

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US Vice President Mike Pence agreed to hold a secret meeting with North Korean officials while at the Olympic Games, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The meeting was all set to go ahead on February 10, but the North Koreans pulled out less than two hours before. It was the same day North Korea's visiting delegates, which included Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, met with South Korean President Moon Jae-In and invited him to Pyongyang for a meeting between the leaders.

"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 Ayres, the vice president's chief of staff, told The Post.

The vice president's office said the delegation pulled out of the meeting because the vice president met with North Korean defectors and had announced new sanctions. Ahead of reaching South Korea, Pence said the US will soon unveil the "toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever."

Ahead of his tour of Asia, Pence had not confirmed either way whether he would meet with North Korean officials, only saying at one point, "We'll see what happens." The US State Department had also explicitly ruled out any planned meeting.

"There are no plans to meet with any North Korean officials during or after the Olympics; I want to be clear about that. There are no plans to do so," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on February 6. "The Secretary and the Vice President said we'll see what happens when we get to the Olympics."

This contradicts the latest reports from The Post. According to a White House official, the meeting between Pence and North Korean officials took two weeks to organize, and efforts began after the CIA received word North Korea wanted to meet with Pence.

Pence agreed to the meeting before leaving for his Asia trip on February 5. President Donald Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were all involved in the discussions.

According to The Post, the purpose of the meeting was to convey the US stance on sanctions and denuclearization, rather than open the door to negotiations.

"The president made a decision that if they wanted to talk, we would deliver our uncompromising message. If they asked for a meeting, we would meet," Ayres said. "As we've said from day one about the trip: this administration will stand in the way of Kim's desire to whitewash their murderous regime with nice photo ops at the Olympics. Perhaps that's why they walked away from a meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down."

The meeting was set to take place at the Blue House, the South Korean equivalent of the White House, with Pence, a National Security Council representative, an intelligence representative and Pence's chief of staff meeting Kim Yo Jong and North Korea's official head of state Kim Yong Nam.

North Korea confirmed the meeting on the Saturday morning, but hours later pulled out.

North Korea and the US do communicate

The potential meeting between the two countries reiterates that, while the two countries don't have diplomatic relations, North Korea and the US do indeed communicate.

Last year, Tillerson confirmed there are "three channels open to Pyongyang."

It's unclear what these channels are, after North Korea ended communication to the US via its mission to the United Nations in New York in 2016.

Ashley Parker, a reporter from The Post, confirmed South Korea initially acted as the intermediary for communications between the two countries, but eventually they "directly communicated."

But just this week, Tillerson confirmed the US has the ability to communicate with Pyongyang. He told "60 Minutes" North Korea "will tell" him when they want to talk, because "we receive messages from them."