hankyoreh

during which US President Barack Obama was described as a “monkey”. (captured from MBC)

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

The White House responded strongly to a recent report by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency comparing US President Barack Obama to a “monkey.”

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden responded to the report with an email to journalists on May 8 in which she said, “While the North Korean government-controlled media are distinguished by their histrionics, these comments are particularly ugly and disrespectful.”

When asked about the report at a briefing the same day, State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said, “I don't know how many words I can use up here to describe the rhetoric.”

Harf went on to say that North Korea had repeatedly made remarks that were “offensive, ridiculous, and absurd.”

“It’s disgusting,” she added.

Harf also said the remarks were baseless and that she felt personally offended to see North Korea’s leader using such words to criticize the US.

On May 2, the KCNA reported on North Korean reactions to Obama’s recent visit to South Korea, with some North Korean citizens’ reactions including racial slurs against the US President. They include him being described as a “half-breed of uncertain bloodline,” a “grotesque thing without the basic appearance of a human,” and “fit to live with a group of monkeys in an African zoo, licking the bread crumbs that onlookers throw at him.”

On the same day, the KCNA released another report criticizing President Park Geun-hye, where Obama was described as “the American master who’s worse than a gross black monkey.”

The article on citizen reactions, which included even harsher slurs, was not printed in the English edition, but news spread to the US after a May 8 report by the Washington Post.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]