In the wake of the recent nuclear provocations by the North Korean regime, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has described North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “fool”, just days before Manila hosts an international meeting most certain to address Pyongyang’s long-range missile tests.

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

“That chubby face that looks kind. That son of a bitch. 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 the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean). His foreign ministry will on the coming Monday (7 July) host the Asean Regional Forum, which brings together 27 countries that include China, Australia, India, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea and the United States.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is due to attend the Manila meeting, has said he wanted dialogue with North Korea at some point, stressing it was not the enemy, and the US did not seek to topple the regime. (ANI)