North Korea compares Trump’s threat to “Dog’s Bark”

SEOUL: Earlier Trump dubbed the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un “Rocket man” and said he was on a “suicide mission”.

Subsequently, Trump in United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday warned North Korea that Washington would “totally destroy” it.

Comparing it to a “dog’s bark“, North Korea shrugged off US President Donald Trump’s fiery threat of destroying the nation.

The speech came after months of escalating tensions over advances in the rogue weapons programme operated by Pyongyang, which has defied tough sanctions to launch its sixth and largest nuclear test and to fire a series of missiles over Japan.

Arriving in New York for the UN meetings, North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho was mobbed with questions from reporters about the Trump speech and replied with a proverb.

“There is a saying that marching goes on even when dogs bark,” he said as he entered his hotel on Wednesday.

“If they are trying to shock us with the sound of a dog’s bark they are clearly having a dog dream.”

“We need a sturdy nuclear deterrence to protect ourselves from an aggressive US and the autocratic regime has made militarism a central part of our national ideology,” North Korea said.

Pyongyang’s stated aim is to be able to target the US mainland and the nation has flaunted the advances in its weapons programme in recent weeks, with the September test of what it said was a miniaturised H-bomb capable of being loaded onto a rocket.

North Korea also tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July that appeared to bring much of the US mainland into range.
The increasingly brazen provocations have frayed the patience of the US and its allies.

A day later Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the UN that dialogue with the North would not work.

The North has fortified its southern frontier with a hefty arsenal of artillery that has the South’s capital Seoul, just 55 kilometers (35 miles) away, in its sights.