North Korea is fighting back in the war of words that has escalated between the communist state and the U.S. in recent days because of the hacking of Sony Pictures. In its latest statement, Pyongyang accused the U.S. for causing Internet outages and insulted President Barack Obama while they were at it.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency aired a statement Saturday from North Korea’s National Defence Commission, which blamed the U.S. for the reported Internet outages earlier this week. The statement from the country’s ruling body also called Obama a “monkey.”
“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” the statement read, criticizing the President for asking Sony to release The Interview, the James Franco-Seth Rogen comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
According to The New York Times, Washington has already denied being involved in the Internet disruptions in North Korea. However, the White House did say it was working on a “proportional response” to the hacking of Sony Pictures.
While today’s statement from North Korea did not include a specific threat of retaliation for the outages, Pyongyang did essentially call the U.S. a big bully.
“The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic,” the statement read, reports the Times.
Sony initially pulled the Christmas Day release of The Interview after threats from the hackers, but did release it online Wednesday and it was shown in over 300 indie theaters. It grossed over $1 million, despite that limited release.
image courtesy of Kristin Callahan/ACE/INFphoto.com