North Korea Mocks South’s Lee Jae-myung as a “Confrontation Maniac”

North Korea has gone on the offensive again, this time blasting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung as a “confrontation maniac” after his speech in Washington calling for denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Lee, fresh from his meeting with Donald Trump on Monday, told a US audience that getting rid of nuclear weapons was the key to lasting peace between the two Koreas and would help take the Seoul–Washington alliance to a new “global” level.

Pyongyang, unsurprisingly, wasn’t having it. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) slammed Lee’s remarks as proof of his “true colours as a hypocrite” and accused him of plotting endless hostility toward the North.

“His unveiled confrontational intention gave irrefutable evidence to prove why his remarks about ‘denuclearisation’ are a sheer sophism,” KCNA wrote, before adding that North Korea’s nuclear status was “an inevitable option” in the face of outside threats.

The agency dismissed Lee’s vision as a “naive dream, like trying to catch a cloud floating in the sky” and declared that denuclearisation was already “extinct theoretically, practically and physically.”

Lee, who took office in June after the dramatic fall of his predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol, has promised to rebuild ties with the North. But Pyongyang has repeatedly shot down those efforts. Earlier this month, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong openly mocked Seoul, saying bluntly: “We do not care about them and are not interested in them.”

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand its arsenal. The Arms Control Association estimates Pyongyang has around 50 nuclear warheads — with enough fissile material to build dozens more.