North Korea accused the U.S. President Barack Obama of shutting down its Internet after the Asian country experienced frequent outages recently.
“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest (sic),” said a spokesman for the North Korean National Defense Commission (NDC) in a statement published by the nation’s official news agency, KCNA.
The statement was in response to the intermittent disruptions in the service that the principal North Korean internet sites have experienced during the last week.
U.S. specialists attributed the outages to several different factors including hacking or technological glitches.
The internet crisis started after Sony Pictures canceled the release of the movie “The Interview,” which allegedly depicts in a comedic and unfavorable way North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, including a scene where he’s assassinated.
Sony Pictures was hacked by a group called “Guardians of Peace,” which leaked the company’s internal emails and a version of the unreleased film.
The NDC spokesman called the internet outages as a cowardly attack.
“The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic,” said the NDC spokesman in a statement.
“If the US persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite (North Korea’s) repeated warnings, the US should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows,” the statement added, also implying potential “deadly” retaliation.
North Korea has repeatedly denied any involvement with the hacking of Sony Pictures, denouncing the U.S. blaming of Pyongyang as being issued “without clear evidence.” It also demanded Washington present the proof behind its accusations.