North Korean assault on ‘mentally deranged’ Trump

‘Rockets visit’ to the entire US mainland inevitable, North Korea tells ‘deranged Trump’.

North Korean youth at an anti-United States rally in Pyongyang. Picture: AFP

North Korea’s Foreign Minister has denounced Donald Trump as a “mentally deranged person full of megalomania”, warning that his threats made “our rockets’ visit to the entire US mainland all the more inevitable”.

Yesterday’s ever-escalating rhetoric over Pyongyang’s push for nuclear weapons came as the US deployed B-1B Lancer bombers, escorted by fighter jets, to fly in international airspace over the sea east of North Korea. Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said: “This is the farthest north of the Demilitarised Zone any US fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century, underscoring the seriousness with which we take (North Korea’s) reckless ­behaviour.”

Hours later the US President tweeted: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at UN. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”

Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho addressed the UN General Assembly four days after Mr Trump used the same stage to assail ­dictator Kim Jong-un as a “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission”.

He said Mr Trump made an ­“irreversible mistake” in lambasting Kim. “President Evil is holding the seat of the US President,” Mr Ri said, warning that Pyongyang was ready to defend itself if the US showed any sign of conducting a “decapitating operation on our headquarters or military attack against our country”.

“Now we are finally only a few steps away from the final gate of completion of the state nuclear force,” he said. He said North Korea’s recent successful “ICBM-mountable H-bomb test” was part of the effort to complete his country’s nuclear force. “Our national nuclear force is, to all intents and purposes, a war deterrent for putting an end to ­nuclear threat of the US and for preventing its military invasion,” Mr Ri said. “And our ultimate goal is to establish the balance of power with the US.”

Mr Trump’s “reckless and violent words” had provoked “the ­supreme dignity” of North Korea and “rendered this sacred UN arena tainted”, he added.

“None other than Trump himself is on a suicide mission,” Mr Ri said. “In case innocent lives of the US are lost because of this suicide attack, Trump will be held totally responsible.”

North Korea held a large anti-US rally in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square, named for the current leader’s grandfather and founder of North Korea. They listened to speeches from senior officials excoriating the US and its President on Saturday. A parade of marchers carried signs with slogans such as “decisive ­revenge” and “death to the American imperialists”. They shouted phrases such as “total destruction”, according to the Korean Central News Agency, the state news service.

The tensions over North Korea have reached such a pitch that an earthquake on Saturday in the area of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site was immediately assumed to be another nuclear test.

The quake registered at 3.4 on the seismic scale, but the most ­recent nuclear test, on September 3 — believed to have been of a hydrogen bomb — reached 6.3.

The (South) Korea Meteorological Administration and Chinese authorities said the tremor was not prompted by an explosion or by a collapse of the test site. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said after Mr Ri’s remarks yesterday that “all relevant parties should remain ­restrained, strive to ease the situation, and not provoke each other.”

He said that “the situation on the Korean peninsula now is complex and sensitive”.

He also criticised new US trade, transport and banking measures against North Korean businesses, signed by Mr Trump on Thursday. “We are consistently opposed to unilateral sanctions outside the framework of the UN Security Council,” he said.

He repeated China’s formula that “relevant parties” “should meet each other halfway to really solve the Korean peninsula issue”.

China’s Commerce Ministry confirmed at the weekend that the country would comply with new UN Security Council sanctions to limit the supply of refined petroleum products to North Korea. The agreed ban does not include crude oil supplied from China via the Friendship Pipeline from the border city of Dandong.

NK News reported that the price of petrol in Pyongyang had soared 43 per cent last week following the announcement of the sanctions, while that of diesel rose 18 per cent.

China will also cease buying North Korean textiles, a major source of revenue for Pyongyang, which was banned in the same UN measure.

But although China’s state-owned banks have been reported to have frozen most activity by North Korean account holders, both individual and corporate, it denied introducing a total ban.

The Asian finance house CLSA reported at the weekend that the major beneficiary of China’s halt in imports of coal from North Korea since February, had been Mongolia, which has seen its own exports to China rise significantly since then.

Additional reporting: Agencies