New York<\/p>\n
North Korea said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after President Donald Trump vowed to destroy the reclusive country, with leader Kim Jong Un promising to make Trump pay dearly for his threats.<\/p>\n
Kim did not specify what action he would take against the United States or Trump, whom he called a “mentally deranged US dotard” in the latest bout of insults the two leaders have traded in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
South Korea said it was the first direct statement of its kind by a North Korean leader. However, Kim’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific Ocean. Ri told reporters in New York he did not know Kim’s exact thoughts.<\/p>\n
Japan, the only country ever to suffer an atomic attack, described the threat as “totally unacceptable”.<\/p>\n
The US president, who has not shrunk from fighting fire with fire in his rhetoric on North Korea, sent another message Friday on Twitter.<\/p>\n
“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before,” Trump said, a day after announcing additional sanctions on Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
Trump said in his first address to the United Nations on Tuesday he would “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States and its allies, and called Kim a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.<\/p>\n
Kim said the North would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States and that Trump’s comments had confirmed his own nuclear program was “the correct path”.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on September 3 and has launched dozens of missiles this year as it accelerates a programme aimed at enabling it to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.<\/p>\n
“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire,” Kim said in the statement on the KCNA state news agency.<\/p>\n
Asked about the North Korean hydrogen bomb threat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told ABC that diplomatic efforts will continue but all military options were still on the table.<\/p>\n
“We are quite challenged” with the escalating rhetoric, he said, but hoped increased sanctions and “voices from every corner of the world” would help lead Kim to talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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