North Korean Official Warns U.S.: Take Hydrogen Bomb Threat 'Literally'

The United States must take North Korea's threat to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean "literally," a visibly angry North Korean official told CNN on Wednesday. 

Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in the country's Foreign Ministry, "angrily" issued the warning in an interview with a CNN correspondent in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

"The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his word literally," the diplomat said, referring to Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

According to The Guardian, the foreign minister told reporters in New York last month that North Korea could conduct "the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific."

In January, Kim claimed that North Korea conducted an underground test of a hydrogen bomb, far more powerful than the bomb the United States dropped on Japan to end World War II. 

The North Korean diplomat's warning is the latest development in the war of words between Kim and President Donald Trump.

Trump, in a speech to the United Nations last month, threatened to "totally destroy North Korea" in order to defend the United States or it allies. 

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