North Korea calls Barack Obama 'a monkey' in latest attack as 'The Interview' row festers

The racial slur was reported by the official Korean news agency

Though it denies responsibility for the Sony hack, Pyongyang has called it a 'righteous deed' (EPA)

North Korea compared President Barack Obama to a monkey, and blamed him today for internet blackouts as well as the US release of The Interview film this week, that depicts an assassination of dictator Kim Jong Un.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” said an unidentified spokesman at the National Defence Commission in a statement reported by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The country led by Kim Jong Un has denied involvement in a cyberattack on Sony Pictures, after the controversial film was screened yesterday, but has expressed fury over Obama criticising the company’s decision to pull the movie amid threats of terror made against cinemas.

North Korea has described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary but it is not the first time to have used the racial slur against the president, as in May the country’s news agency published a statement saying Obama has “the shape of a monkey”.

Earlier this year, the North Korea called US Secretary of State John Kerry a wolf with a “hideous” lantern-jaw and described South Korean President Park Geun-hye as a prostitute.

The defense commission also accused Washington for intermittent outages of internet in North Korea this week, which happened after the US had promised to respond to the Sony hack. The US government has refused to answer whether it was behind the shutdown.

North Korea described Obama as a 'monkey'

According to the North Korean commission’s spokesman, “the US, a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag.” DPRK refers to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name.

The commission said the movie was the result of a hostile US policy toward North Korea and threatened the US with unspecified consequences.

The two countries are technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North’s nuclear and missile programs and its alleged abuses of human rights. The US stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against attacks made by the North.