ROSLAN RAHMAN / Getty Images(NEW YORK) — North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Monday that his country has the right to shoot down American warplanes in response to Trump’s “declaration of war.”

North Korea has “every right to take countermeasures … including to shoot down United States strategic bombers, even when not inside the air space border of our country,” Ri said in brief remarks outside his hotel in New York, where he is still attending the U.N. General Assembly. “The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then.”

Ri was referring to Trump’s tweet late Saturday, in which the president warned Ri that “if he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”

Trump tweeted after Ri said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly earlier Saturday that the U.S. mainland was an “inevitable” target for rocket attacks after Trump’s previous remarks on North Korea. This followed an unprecedented statement by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in which he described Trump’s behavior as “mentally deranged,” and calling him “a dotard” and “a gangster fond of playing with fire.”

In his first U.N. address last week, Trump referred to Kim as “Rocket Man” and said that if the U.S. is forced to defend itself or its allies it will have no choice but to “totally destroy” North Korea.

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