North Korea may consider H-bomb test in Pacific

SEOUL/NEW YORK - Reuters

North Korea said on Sept. 22 it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to destroy the reclusive country, with leader Kim Jong Un promising to make a "mentally deranged" Trump pay dearly for his threats.

Kim did not specify what action he would take against the U.S. or Trump, with whom he has traded insults over recent weeks. South Korea said it was the first direct statement of its kind by a North Korean leader.

However, Kim's foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said in televised remarks North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale on the Pacific Ocean.

Ri, who was talking to reporters in New York ahead of a planned address later this week, also said he did not know Kim's exact thoughts.

Japan, the only country ever to suffer an atomic attack, described the threat as "totally unacceptable.”
Trump said in his first address to the United Nations on Sept. 19 he would "totally destroy" North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States and its allies, and called Kim a "rocket man" on a suicide mission.

Kim said the North would consider the "highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history" against the United States and that Trump's comments had confirmed his own nuclear programme was "the correct path.”

"I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire," Kim said.