North Korea slams Donald Trump for a ‘grave provocation’ after he declared Kim Jong Un’s crackpot kingdom a ‘state sponsor of terror’
DESPOT Kim Jong-un has damned US President Donald Trump's decision to designate Pyongyang a state sponsor of terror as a "grave provocation and aggressive violation".
Through his foreign ministry the North Korean leader has violently condemned the move and renewed its threat to the US which in the past has included wiping it out with nuclear weapons.
A spokesman dubbed the decision "disgraceful behaviour" by Trump and strongly denied the president's claims that Pyongyang supported acts of terror.
The hermit state also warned that sanctions would never force it to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
North Korean state news agency KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesperson as saying: "Our army and people are full of rage and anger towards the heinous gangsters who dared to put the name of our sacred country in this wretched list of 'terrorism'."
Attack Washington for behaving like an "international judge on terrorism", the spokesperson added that the US move was "clearly an absurdity and a mockery to world peace and security".
Trump declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday, a spot on a US blacklist Pyongyang had shed nearly a decade ago
A separate statement has also been released this time attributed to a spokesman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a North Korean state organisation.
It said the move by "old lunatic Trump" has caused the North Korean army and people to explode in "hate and spirit to destroy the enemy".
Experts say the US decision to put North Korea back on its terrorism blacklist will have limited practical effect.
But may make a diplomatic solution of the standoff over its nuclear weapons program more difficult.
A day after placing the hard line socialist country back on the list, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on a slew of North Korean shipping firms and Chinese trading companies in an effort to increase pressure on over its nuclear program and deprive it of foreign revenue.
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North Korea has been accelerating its pursuit of nuclear weapons capable of targeting the United States and its Asian allies.
In recent months, the North conducted its most powerful nuclear test yet and tested a pair of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the US mainland if perfected.
The country also fired powerful new mid-range missiles over Japan and threatened to fire the same weapons toward Guam, a US Pacific territory and military hub.
The United States has responded by dispatching strategic assets, including aircraft carriers and long-range bombers, more frequently to the region for patrols or drills.
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