Trump renews barb at North Korean leader; Russia accuses U.S. of provocation

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his insults against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday and also dismissed a Chinese diplomatic effort as having failed to rein in Pyongyang’s weapons program, as Russia accused Washington of provocation. 

Trump’s barbed Twitter comment, echoing a remark in a speech on Wednesday night, comes after North Korean test fired its most advanced missile earlier this week, prompting Trump to pledge increased sanctions soon.

“The Chinese envoy, who just returned from North Korea, seems to have had no impact on Little Rocket Man,” Trump said in a Twitter post, one day after speaking with Chinese President Chinese President Xi Jinping by telephone and reiterating his call for Beijing to use its leverage against North Korea. 

The U.S. president and the North Korean leader have traded personal insults in recent weeks. In a speech in Missouri on Wednesday night, Trump referred to “Little Rocket Man ... He is a sick puppy.”

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have flared anew after North Korea said it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday in a “breakthrough” that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

At an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting late Wednesday, the United States said North Korea’s leadership would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in some of his most robust comments on the subject to date, said on Thursday the way the United States was handling the situation was dangerously provocative, even as Moscow also condemned North Korea’s test.

Lavrov pointed to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises planned for December and accused the United States of trying to provoke Kim into “flying off the handle” over his missile program to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country.

He also flatly rejected a U.S. call to cut ties with Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile program, calling U.S. policy towards North Korea deeply flawed. 

North Korea, which conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test in September, has tested dozens of ballistic missiles under Kim’s leadership.

Pyongyang has said its weapons programs are a necessary defense against U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, denies any such intention.

Previous U.S. administrations have failed to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and a sophisticated missile program. Trump, who has previously said the United States would “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary to protect itself and its allies from the nuclear threat, has also struggled to contain Pyongyang since taking office in January.

U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday that Washington has asked China to cut off oil supply to North Korea, a drastic step that Beijing - the North’s neighbor and sole major trading partner - has so far refrained from taking.

China earlier this month praised the friendship between it and North Korea after its special envoy visited Pyongyang. 

Moscow also sells oil products to North Korea and thousands of North Koreans work in Russia, sending remittances back to the authorities in Pyongyang.

In his remarks on Thursday, Lavrov said Haley’s call for the world to isolate North Korea was wrong. “We have already said many times that sanctions pressure has exhausted itself,” he said.