SEOUL: In a warning, North Korea said the US "will face worse and worse crisis" after American President Joe Biden called Pyongyang's nuclear program a "serious threat", according to a state media report.
Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement on Sunday that Biden made a slip of the tongue last week about North Korea in his first Congressional speech in which he called Pyongyang a "serious threat" to the security of the US and the world, reports Pyongyang's official KCNA news.
"His statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK as it had been done by the US for over half a century," Xinhua news agency quoted Kwon as saying in the statement published by KCNA.
"The US will face worse and worse crisis beyond control in the near future if it is set to approach the bilateral ties, still holding on the outdated policy from Cold War-minded perspective and viewpoint.
"Now that what the keynote of the US' new North Korean policy has become clear, we will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and with time the US will find itself in a very grave situation," he added
Kwon also said the US-claimed "diplomacy" is a spurious signboard for covering up its hostile acts, and the "deterrence" touted by it "is just a means for posing nuclear threats" to Pyongyang.
In a separate statement issued on Sunday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry also slammed Washington for criticizing the country's human rights record, saying it amounts to insulting the "dignity of our supreme leadership".
Last week, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price released a statement in which he "smeared the statewide anti-epidemic measures in the DPRK" for protecting the life and security of the people from the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic as "human rights abuses" and "even faulted the dignity of our supreme leadership", the Ministry said. (IANS)