North Korea thinks Donald Trump is 'absurd' and 'illogical'

Mr Trump previously said Japan and South Korea should arm themselves with nuclear weapons

A North Korean official said Mr Trump's policies would only make matters worse AP

Donald Trump may feel he has a common-sense approach to foreign policy, but one North Korean official found recent remarks by the GOP candidate “totally absurd and illogical” — and they may only make the country's nuclear ambitions stronger.

In an early-April campaign stop in Wisconsin, Mr Trump said that both Japan and South Korea should develop their own nuclear programs to defend themselves against North Korea. The US troops, under a Trump presidency, would leave the region, he said.

“Donald Trump’s remarks are totally absurd and illogical,” Ri Jong Ryul, deputy-director general of the Institute of International Studies in Pyongyang, told CNN.

“The US tells us to give up our nuclear program, is preparing a nuclear attack against us, and on the other hand would tell its allies to have nuclear weapons? Isn’t this [a] double standard?”

Mr Ri said that North Korea does not care about the outcome of the 2016 election in the US. Whether Republican or Democrat, he said, the US has always been hostile toward the Korean peninsula. A policy like Mr Trump’s, he added, would only boost the country’s nuclear ambition.

Last week, the North Korean propaganda site, DPRK Today, penned an open letter to President Barack Obama in the voice of former president Abraham Lincoln. In the letter, Mr Lincoln scolded Mr Obama for his nuclear efforts.

“If the United States, a country with the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpile, only pays lip service, like a parrot, and doesn’t do anything actively,” the letter said, “it will be a mockery to the entire world.”