Share :

Download PDF :

CNA (6 December 2019)

North Korea has threatened to resume referring to US president Donald Trump as a "dotard", raising the prospect of a return to a war of words with a negotiating deadline approaching.

Pyongyang has set Washington an end-of-year time limit to offer it new concessions in deadlocked nuclear negotiations, and has said it will adopt an unspecified "new way" if nothing acceptable is forthcoming.

Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - whose countries and their allies fought each other to a standstill in the 1950-53 Korean War - engaged in mutual insults and threats of devastation in 2017, sending tensions soaring before a diplomatic rapprochement the following year.

But denuclearisation negotiations have been at a standstill since a summit in Hanoi broke up in February.

Trump on Tuesday indicated military action was still possible when he was asked about Pyongyang on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Britain.

"He definitely likes sending rockets up, doesn't he? That's why I call him 'Rocket Man'," Trump said, reprising one of his previously favoured nicknames for Kim.

Pyongyang reacted stiffly late Thursday, with vice-foreign minister Choe Son Hui saying the comments were made with "no courtesy when referring to the supreme leadership... of the DPRK".

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/north-korea-donald-trump-dotard-12158318