N. Korea slams Trump, says he 'begged for nuclear war'

Pyongyang, Nov 11 :  North Korea lashed out at US President Donald Trump again on Saturday, describing him as a "destroyer" who "begged for nuclear war" during his tour of Asia.

"His current trip to our surrounding region is a warmonger's visit for confrontation to rid the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of its self-defensive nuclear deterrence," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on the state media, Korean Central News Agency.

Trump is in Vietnam as part of a five-nation tour of Asia and North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has been a major talking point with his Japanese, South Korean and Chinese counterparts.

"The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger," Trump said about North Korea during an address at South Korea's National Assembly in Seoul earlier this week. "Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face."

He called on nations to stop financing and trading with North Korea and said that the region "must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail".

North Korean officials, who said they'd be watching the visit, were quick to fire back on Saturday. Pyongyang described Trump's trip as "nothing but a business trip by a warmonger to enrich the monopolies of the US defence industry", CNN reported.

It referred to Trump as "dotard", a word the reclusive nation has used against him in the past. Trump has previously derided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "rocket man".

"Trump, during his visit, laid bare his true nature as destroyer of the world peace and stability and begged for a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula," the statement said.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have escalated after North Korea's test firing of missiles and conducting its most powerful hydrogen test in September.

Trump had warned that the isolated regime would "face fire and fury like the world has never seen".