N. Korean Website Says South Official Will Pay for 'Slander'

A state-run North Korean website on Tuesday warned a South Korean official that he would pay a "steep" price for suggesting the isolated Stalinist nation should simply disappear.

Speaking to reporters in Seoul on Monday, Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok had argued that North Korea barely deserved to be regarded as a proper country and that it would be best if it "vanished as soon as possible."

South Korean officials tend to be guarded in their criticism of the North, and Kim's remarks were seen as unusually blunt and forthright.

"Kim Min-Seok should be prepared to pay a steep price for his thoughtless and slanderous remarks," said the official North Korean website Uriminzokkiri, which distributes news and propaganda from the state media.

"We will not sit idle and watch such a crazy dog barking around," it added.

The two Koreas have upped the rhetorical ante in their verbal exchanges recently, at a time of elevated tensions due to signs that Pyongyang may be preparing to conduct a nuclear test.

As well as repeated sexist swipes at South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, Pyongyang's state media recently put out a racist diatribe aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama.

Kim's remarks were triggered by what he called Pyongyang's "absurd" denials that it had anything to do with three crashed surveillance drones recently recovered on the South Korean side of the border.

Seoul said a joint investigation with U.S. analysts had provided "smoking gun" evidence that the drones came from the North and were pre-programmed to fly over military installations in the South.