Pyongyang’s FM makes remarks in response to US President Donald Trump calling Pyongyang’s leader ‘rocket man’.
North Korea has warned that US President Donald Trump’s bellicose remarks against the Asian country and its leader will make the US mainland an “inevitable” target for rocket strikes.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Hong remarks on Saturday in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly came hours after the US flew bomber jets near North Korea.
“Through such a prolonged and arduous struggle, now we are finally only a few steps away from the final gate of completion of the state nuclear force,” Ri told the annual gathering of world leaders in New York .
Tensions between the US and North Korea have risen in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, Trump called the North Korean leader “rocket man” and a “madman”. Kim hit back, dubbing him a “mentally deranged US dotard” who would face the “highest level of hardline countermeasure in history” in retaliation for the US president saying Washington would “totally destroy” the Asian country if it threatened the US or its allies.
“It is a war of words with a very dangerous edge,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said.
“We are talking about two potentially nuclear powers coming into a confrontation being edged on by a level rhetoric seldom seen and certainly not heard within the confines of the UN General Assembly,” he added.
