North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said Pyongyang may conduct a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific Ocean to demonstrate its “highest-level” of possible actions against the U.S. after President Trump threatened the country in a speech to the United Nations this week.
“It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific,” Ri told reporters, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency on Thursday. “We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un.”
Ri, who is in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, said these comments after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s fiery response to Trump’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, in which he taunted Kim, calling him “Rocket Man,” and warned that the U.S. would have “no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if the rogue regime threatened the U.S. or its allies.
“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” Kim said in response.
The Trump administration released new financial sanctions Thursday against North Korea which would limit foreign companies to conduct business with either only the United States or North Korea.
North Korea has conducted a series of six nuclear tests, the largest one occurring on Sept. 3. Pyongyang claimed that one was a hydrogen bomb test, but analysts have expressed skepticism over this claim.
