North Korea calls Trump 'warmonger, reckless old lunatic'

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - North Korea's Foreign Ministry on Saturday issued its first official statement on President Donald Trump's trip to Asia, slamming Trump for trying to denuclearize the North.

The ministry said that Trump's trip "is a warmonger's trip for confrontation with our country, trying to remove our self-defensive nuclear deterrent."

It accused Trump of trying to demonize North Korea, keep it apart from the international community and undermine its government.

The ministry said, "Reckless remarks by an old lunatic like Trump will never scare us or stop our advance. On the contrary, all this makes us more sure that our choice to promote economic construction at the same time as building up our nuclear force is all the more righteous, and it pushes us to speed up the effort to complete our nuclear force."

North Korea is not known to have tested any of its missiles or nuclear devices since Sept. 15, a relative lull after a brisk series of tests earlier this year.