Kim Jong Un's regime mocks Donald Trump saying he is too much like Obama and is copying his predecessor's North Korea policy
- Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Asia prompted Pyongyang to speak out
- North Korea slammed Trump for adopting the same policies as Barack Obama
- Hermit kingdom's media said Tillerson is 'repeating what Obama touted'
North Korea has mocked Donald Trump by saying that he is too much like Barack Obama.
Kim Jong Un's regime slammed the US President, claiming he is adopting his predecessor's policies.
The communist country, which regularly vilified Obama in the strongest terms, had been slow to do the same with the Trump administration.
But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent trip to Asia, where he discussed tougher sanctions, appears to have prompted the secretive state to make its views known.
North Korea has mocked Donald Trump by saying that he is too much like Barack Obama. The hermit kingdom's state media slammed the president, claiming he is adopting is predecessor's policies. Obama and Trump are seen at the inauguration on January 20
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves at parade participants at the Kim Il Sung Square in capital Pyongyang
The latest comments come just days after officials in the hermit kingdom said their military it is not frightened by US threats of possible pre-preemptive action to halt its nuclear capability and that the country is fully ready to go to war.
Just before Tillerson arrived in Tokyo, the North launched several ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan
While he was still in China, North Korea conducted a test of what it called a 'revolutionary' new type of engine for its rockets.
In North Korea's first official comments since Tillerson's visit to the region, a Foreign Ministry spokesman seized on the former oil executive's blunt assessment that Obama's strategy needs to be replaced and US efforts to get North Korea to denuclearize over the past 20 years have been a failure.
The spokesman then slammed Trump for their similar policy plans, particularly regarding tougher economic sanctions.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent trip to Asia appears to have prompted the secretive state to make its views known. Tillerson (right) is seen standing next to Chineses President Xi Jinping (left) during his visit to China earlier this week
Tillerson admitted the failure of the US efforts to denuclearize the DPRK for 20 years and end of Obama's policy of 'strategic patience' during his recent tour,' the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in the dispatch on Monday, quoting the unnamed Foreign Ministry official.
'Now Tillerson is repeating what Obama touted ... until he left the White House.'
North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK, has been continuing with its ongoing nuclear testing program.
On Wednesday, it appears to have conducted more missile tests from the eastern port city of Wonsan, although these reportedly failed.
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Trump does not have a clear policy on North Korea yet.
Tillerson stressed repeatedly that a comprehensive policy review is underway and that the purpose of his trip to Asia was to hear out the North's neighbors, although it is not clear exactly how successful his dialogue was.
South Korea currently only has an interim government, since President Park Geun-hye was forced out of office amid a scandal.
China, North Korea's economic lifeline, has a longstanding dialogue-based agenda that Washington is already familiar with but has not previously engaged with.
However, Tillerson did raise some eyebrows with his tough-sounding warnings.
A North Korean soldier, right, tries to take a photograph through a window while US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits the U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission meeting room at the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War
While in Seoul, he said 'everything was on the table,' including military intervention, or even a pre-emptive strike if tougher sanctions or other diplomatic measures fail to achieve Washington's goals.
But some policy experts in the US did not attach much gravitas to his warnings.
'If you look at Tillerson's full statements, they were much more of a continuation of current policy than has been portrayed in the press, with an emphasis on expanding sanctions,' said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist of the Global Security Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
'You can try to squeeze North Korea with more sanctions and maybe slow its program, but it's hard to see how to stop it from moving ahead without diplomacy.'
Tillerson's remarks are in line with longstanding US policy, including Obama's, but were stated more threateningly.
In this file image made from video released by KRT on Tuesday, March 7, 2017, North Korea launches four missiles in an undisclosed location North Korea
President Bill Clinton, for example, is known to have seriously considered a pre-emptive strike over the nuclear issue in 1994.
Even so, tone is important in diplomacy and Tillerson does seem to have reassured some in Seoul and Tokyo that the United States hasn't forgotten them.
Pyongyang, however, seems to have hit the familiar bravado button.
'The nuclear force of the DPRK is the treasured sword of justice and the most reliable war deterrence to defend the socialist motherland and the life of its people,' the official reportedly said.
'If the businessmen-turned-US authorities thought that they would frighten the DPRK, they would soon know that their method would not work.'
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