North Korea has called for the US to stop ‘encroaching upon the dignity and sovereignty’ of the Palestinian people.
North Korean state media has accused the US of “slaughter and robbery” over President Donald Trump’s proposed plan to occupy the Gaza Strip and expel its population of more than two million Palestinians.
“The world is now boiling like a porridge pot over the US’ bombshell declaration,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary published on Wednesday, in which Trump was not explicitly named.
The White House’s Gaza proposal was evidence of the US’s “hegemonic, invasive” ambition for world dominance, it said.
KCNA also called the US a “ferocious robber” over the Trump administration’s calls to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland, as well as its decision to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America”.
“The US should awaken from its anachronistic daydream and stop at once the act of encroaching upon the dignity and sovereignty of other countries and nations,” KCNA said.
“It’s not an issue limited to the Gaza Strip only,” it added.
North Korea has been an outspoken critic of the situation in Gaza, condemning Israel for its “ruthless” massacre of Palestinians and calling the US an “accomplice” to its crimes.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump confirmed that his proposal for the mass displacement of more than two million people from Gaza would not include a right for Palestinians to return to their land.
In that interview, Trump also reiterated his desire to “own” the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, which he has said he will transform into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Trump has also pressured Egypt and Jordan to take in Gaza’s population after his planned eviction, a proposal both countries have firmly rejected.
Trump’s assertion that he is seeking the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population contradicts recent comments by his aides, who previously presented the plan as a rebuilding effort that would allow residents to eventually return.
Human rights groups have condemned the move as tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
It is yet to be seen how the sometimes rocky, occasionally warm, relationship between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will play out during the US president’s second term.
Trump said on February 7 that his administration “will have relations with North Korea”, adding that he gets “along with them very well”.
Trump met with Kim on three separate occasions during his first term.
In 2019, he also made history as he became the first sitting US president to step onto North Korean soil since a 1953 armistice brought a de facto end to the Korean War.
On Tuesday, North Korea again accused the US of posing a grave threat to its national security. It said its military forces are ready to take any action necessary after a US Navy fast-attack nuclear submarine docked in a port in the South Korean city of Busan.
North Korea’s Ministry of Defence described the presence of the US nuclear submarine on the Korean Peninsula as a “clear expression of the US invariable hysteria for confrontation”.