North Korea today launched the latest in a series of vicious personal attacks on South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, describing her as a "matchless evil woman" intent on war.
The verbal assault from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) followed Park's participation last week in a nuclear security summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in Washington that condemned Pyongyang's continued nuclear weapons push.
A CPRK spokesman said Park's behaviour and comments at the summit resembled "the epileptic fit of a despicable confrontational maniac."
Military tensions on the divided Korean peninsula have been rising since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, and a long-range rocket launch a month later that was seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
The North's state media had carried a number of similar verbal attacks on Park, employing coarse and often highly sexist language in condemning her uncompromising stance towards Pyongyang and the South's alliance with the United States.
Today's statement, published by the official KCNA news agency, said Park's insistence on the North abandoning its nuclear weapons programme proved she was "the worst blockhead, ignorant of how the world goes around."
"The matchless evil woman pushed North-South relations to a total stalemate and increased the danger of a war," it said, criticising her "dirty existence" and "rabid dog" behaviour.
The statement came a few days after an official North Korean website released a new propaganda video portraying a multiple rocket attack on the presidential Blue House in Seoul.
"She cannot find shelter, even in the US," the CPRK spokesman warned.
The Korean-language version of the same statement used even stronger language, calling Park "Obama's prostitute" who sold Korea's national interests to foreign forces.
The South Korean government responded angrily to the abusive tone.
"The government strongly warns North Korea against slandering our leader with unspeakable vulgar language ... And issuing physical threats," said Park Soo-Jin, deputy spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul.
President Park has taken a hardline with Pyongyang since the January nuclear test, leading calls for tough international sanctions and vowing a strong military response to any direct provocations from the North.
