N’Korea blasts Trump, calls him ‘dotage’ for threatening military action against Pyongyang

North Korea has renewed its verbal attacks on President Trump, after he threatened military action.

The foreign ministry said if Mr. Trump was confrontational, it “must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard.”

The North first called Mr. Trump a dotard, meaning old and weak, in 2017.

It is the first time in over a year that Pyongyang has been openly critical of the US President, the BBC reports.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dotard as “a person whose mental faculties are impaired, specifically, a person whose intellect or understanding is impaired in old age.

The two leaders held face-to-face talks in Singapore in June 2018 and in Vietnam in February this year, aimed at denuclearisation.

But talks have stalled since then, and despite another impromptu meeting at the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea in June, the North has restarted testing of short-range ballistic missiles.

Read also: European leaders set to fire back at Trump over ‘delinquent’ military spending comments

At the NATO summit in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, Mr. Trump referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “rocket man.”

He also said that the US reserved the right to use military force against Pyongyang.

In a statement carried by North Korea’s state news agency on Friday, Vice Foreign Minister, Choe Son-hui, warned that the “war of words” from two years ago may be resuming.

“If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard.”

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