CLOSE President Trump’s comment during his United Nations speech has apparently lit the wick of war against North Korea. Josh King has the story (@abridgetoland) Buzz60 
 
 This Oct. 7, 2017 photo distributed by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking during a meeting of the central committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (Photo: AP) 
 
 North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Wednesday that President Trump lit "the fuse of war" after the U.S. president's speech at the United Nations last month, Russian state news agency Tass reports. 
 
 "By his belligerent and insane statement at the United Nations Trump, so to say, lighted the fuse of war against us," Ri said. During Trump's speech, he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea and denounced North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 
 
 “We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said. “If the righteous many don’t confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph,” he added, before repeating a nickname he gave Kim on Twitter. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.” 
 
 Tass said North Korea’s foreign minister has described the country's nuclear weapons and ballistic program as a “sword of justice” and represent a deterrent to protect the North from the United States. 
 
 Ri said North Korea's forces have “inexhaustible power that won’t leave aggressor state America unpunished,” according to Tass. “Now it is the United States’ turn to pay, and all of our military servicemen and our entire people insistently demand that final scores be settled with the Americans only with a hail of fire, and not with words," Ri added. 
 
 
 
 The remarks come a day after the U.S. military flew two strategic bombers over the Korean Peninsula. 
 
 Two B-1B Lancers took off from Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam on Tuesday to conduct a training mission with military allies Japan and South Korea near the Sea of Japan, according to the U.S. military. 
 
 The mission was a display of alliance between the three nations and their resolve to enhance security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. The presence of the bomber crafts is part of a U.S. Pacific Command mission to ensure a quick and efficient response to various types of threats in the area, the U.S, military stated. 
 
 Trump and Kim have traded heated rhetoric for weeks as tensions remain high amid North Korea's insistence it won't back down over its nuclear weapons program. In recent months, North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear test and fired two missiles over Japan. 
 
 Contributing: Jane Onyanga-Omara 
 
 More: U.S. military flies bombers over Korean Peninsula 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2ycYJMR ||||| MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has “lit the wick of war” with North Korea and his country will be made to pay with “a hail of fire”, a Russian news agency quoted North Korea’s foreign minister as saying on Wednesday. 
 
 Tensions between North Korea and the United States have risen in recent weeks over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. 
 
 North Korea has test-fired several missiles and conducted what it said was a test explosion of a hydrogen bomb as it advances toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. 
 
 Speaking to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said his country’s nuclear program guaranteed peace and safety in the region and would not be a matter of discussion. 
 
 “With his bellicose and insane statement at the United Nations, Trump, you can say, has lit the wick of a war against us,” TASS quoted Ri as saying. “We need to settle the final score, only with a hail of fire, not words.” 
 
 Ri has previously called Trump “President Evil” and his comments are likely to fuel an escalating war of words between the U.S. President and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 
 
 “We have almost reached the last point on the journey toward our final goal - to achieve a real balance of power with the United States,” he said. 
 
 “Our principal position is that we will never agree to any talks in which our nuclear weapons will be the subject of negotiations.” ||||| North Korea Minister for Foreign Affairs Ri Yong Ho speaks during the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) (Associated Press) 
 
 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea's foreign minister told world leaders Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump's insult calling leader Kim Jong Un "rocket man" makes "our rocket's visit to the entire U.S. mainland inevitable all the more." 
 
 Ri Yong Ho called the American president "a mentally deranged person full of megalomania and complacency" with his finger on the "nuclear button." And he said Trump's "reckless and violent words" had provoked "the supreme dignity" of North Korea and "rendered this sacred U.N. arena tainted." 
 
 Ri's highly anticipated speech to the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting fueled the fiery rhetoric between the U.S. Republican president and North Korea's young leader. 
 
 Trump threatened in his speech to the 193-member world body on Tuesday to "totally destroy" North Korea if forced to defend the U.S. or its allies. Kim, in an unusual direct statement to the world, responded pledging to take "highest-level" action against the United States. 
 
 "None other than Trump himself is on a suicide mission," Ri told the assembly Saturday. "In case innocent lives of the U.S. are lost because of this suicide attack, Trump will be held totally responsible." 
 
 In a show of American military might, U.S. bombers and fighter escorts flew in international airspace on Saturday to the farthest point north of the border between North Korea and South Korea that any such American aircraft has gone in this century. 
 
 Defense Department spokesman Dana White said the mission demonstrated "U.S. resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat." He said it showed how seriously Trump takes North Korea's "reckless behavior." 
 
 Ri called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea — the country's official name — "a responsible nuclear weapon state." 
 
 But he warned that "we will take preventive measures by merciless pre-emptive action in case the U.S. and its vassal forces show any sign of conducting a kind of 'decapitating' operation on our headquarters or military attack against our country." 
 
 Ri said, however, that North Korea has no intention of using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against countries that don't join U.S. military actions against the DPRK. 
 
 The U.N. Security Council has imposed its toughest sanctions ever against Pyongyang, but Ri said "it is only a forlorn hope to consider any chance that the DPRK would be shaken an inch or change its stance due to the harsher sanctions by the hostile forces." 
 
 Ri suggested to reporters Friday in New York that his country could conduct an atmospheric hydrogen bomb test to fulfill Kim's vow to take action. But he made no mention of such a test Saturday. 
 
 He did say that North Korea's recent successful "ICBM-mountable H-bomb test" was part of the effort to complete the country's nuclear force. 
 
 "Our national nuclear force is, to all intents and purposes, a war deterrent for putting an end to nuclear threat of the U.S. and for preventing its military invasion," Ri said, "and our ultimate goal is to establish the balance of power with the U.S." 
 
 The foreign minister's opening remarks reflected the deep anger in North Korea at Trump's derisive nickname for Kim, who is revered by many people in the North. 
 
 During Trump's eight months in power, Ri said the American president had turned the White House "into a noisy marketing place," and now he has tried to turn the United Nations "into a gangsters' nest where money is respected and bloodshed is the order of the day." 
 
 The North Korean minister called Trump a "gambler who grew old using threats, frauds and all other schemes to acquire a patch of land" and claimed he is even derided by the American people as "Commander in Grief," ''Lyin King," and "President Evil." 
 
 "Due to his lacking of basic common knowledge and proper sentiment, he tried to insult the supreme dignity of my country by referring it to a rocket," Ri said. "By doing so, however, he committed an irreversible mistake of making our rockets' visit to the entire U.S. mainland inevitable all the more."
– A day after the US flew two bombers over the Korean peninsula in a training exercise with South Korea and Japan, North Korea's foreign minister made incendiary comments promising "a hail of fire" against the US, USA Today reports. "With his bellicose and insane statement at the United Nations, Trump, you can say, has lit the wick of a war against us,” Reuters quotes Ri Yong Ho as telling Russian state media. “We need to settle the final score, only with a hail of fire, not words.” In the speech mentioned by Ri, President Trump vowed to "totally destroy North Korea" if necessary, the Independent reports. Ri also called the North Korean nuclear program a "sword of justice" that ensures the safety of North Korea and the rest of the region. He said the nuclear program is not up for debate or negotiation with the US. “We have almost reached the last point on the journey toward our final goal—to achieve a real balance of power with the United States,” he said. Ri said North Korea has “inexhaustible power that won’t leave aggressor state America unpunished."