‘Fool’ Kim ‘playing with dangerous toys’

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday described North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “fool” and a “son of a b***h”, just days before Manila hosts an international meeting certain to address Pyongyang’s long-range missile tests.

Duterte held nothing back in rebuking Kim for “playing with dangerous toys”, setting the stage for next week’s rare gettogether, to be attended by foreign ministers of all the countries involved in the standoff on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is determined to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States and officials in Washington said Saturday’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile showed it may be able to reach most of the country.

“This Kim Jong-un, a fool... he is playing with dangerous toys, that fool,” Duterte told tax officials in a speech.

“That chubby face that looks kind. That son of a b***h.

“If he commits a mistake, the Far East will become an arid land. It must be stopped, this nuclear war.

“A limited confrontation and it blows up here, I will tell you, the fallout can deplete the soil, the resources and I don’t know what will happen to us.”

This year, Duterte is chairman of Asean and on Monday, his foreign minister will host the Asean Regional Forum, which brings together 27 countries, including Australia, China, India, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea and the US. Reuters