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March 29 (UPI) -- North Korea is not happy about recent comments from U.S. senators regarding its leader. About a week after Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Kim Jong Un a "crazy fat kid" on MSNBC's For the Record with Greta, the statement was condemned by Pyongyang, a rare move for the relatively isolated country.
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A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman told a KCNA reporter McCain's comments were "blasphemy" and that the U.S. senator had offended the country's "supreme dignity."
The spokesman also said "hardline conservative figures like Ted Cruz" were likewise affronting the "supreme dignity" of Kim by proposing to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Republican senator from Texas had said the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the older half-brother of the North Korean leader, provides good grounds for returning Pyongyang to the list.
Cruz said North Korea "enlisted the assassination of dictator Kim Jong Un's own half-brother on foreign soil" using an "internationally banned nerve agent."
Two women allegedly attacked Kim at an airport in Malaysia with a deadly chemical on Feb. 13, and North Korea agents may have been involved.
"Hardline conservative lawmakers of the U.S. Congress have dared to take on our greatest dignity," the spokesman said, "It is the most hostile expression about our ideology, system and people, and a severe provocation equivalent to a declaration of war."
The spokesman added that North Korea would "respond accordingly."
McCain had made his remarks when he suggested that Beijing should do more to control North Korea's bad behavior.
"China is the one, the only one, that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy fat kid that's running North Korea," McCain said. "They're the ones. They could stop North Korea's economy in a week."
