国际英语新闻:Donald Trump threatens to skip next GOP primary debate

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may boycott the next Republican primary debate hosted by CNBC, local media cited Trump's campaign manager as saying on Thursday.

Prior to the second debate hosted by cnn in September, billionaire developer Trump expressed unhappiness with the three-hour length of the cnn debate, and his campaign wanted the third debate to be finished in two hours.

"For us it was imperative that the time be changed to 120 minutes," said Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in an interview with the Times.

"Until we have this criteria specially laid out, it is difficult to participate," Lewandowski said.

The latest threat by the Trump camp not to attend the third round of GOP primary debate came as several candidates expressed concerns about the format of the third debate, according to the New York Times.

The debate, which is slated for Oct. 28 in Boulder, Colorado, will not include time for each candidate to make either opening or closing statements. What's more, it does not set a fixed time for how long the debate will last.

"What CNBC did was send(ing) out a memo and said, "Here's the criteria as you have approved them and that went out to all the campaigns,'" said Lewandowski.

Meanwhile, a statement from CNBC said the goal of such a debate format was to "host the most substantive debate possible," arguing that the TV network was following its tradition of forgoing opening statements.

The statement added it would consider views of all campaigns to finalize the debate structure.