North Korea has branded South Korean President Lee Jae-myung a “confrontation maniac” after a speech in the United States in which he urged efforts to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.

In a speech following a meeting with US President Donald Trump on Monday, Lee said denuclearisation was crucial to securing a permanent peace between the Koreas and would allow the South Korea-US alliance to be upgraded in a “global context”.

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On Wednesday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) hit out at the South Korean leader, saying his speech had revealed his “true colours as a hypocrite to the whole world”.

“His behaviour abroad clearly proved that the ROK’s [Republic of Korea] scheme for confrontation with the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] can never change,” the KCNA said in an unsigned commentary, using the acronyms for the official names of South Korea and North Korea.

“At the same time, Lee Jae-myung, with his unveiled confrontational intention, gave irrefutable evidence to prove why his remarks about ‘denuclearisation’ are a sheer sophism,” the KCNA, which operates as a mouthpiece for Pyongyang, said.

“Availing ourselves of this opportunity, we once again remind him of the fact that our position as a nuclear weapons state is an inevitable option that correctly reflects the hostile threat from outside and the change of the structure of the world security dynamics.”

Denuclearisation is already “extinct theoretically, practically and physically”, the KCNA said, calling Lee’s vision “little short of a naive dream, like trying to catch a cloud floating in the sky”.

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Lee, who took office in June, has pledged to improve relations with Pyongyang after years of strained inter-Korean ties under his conservative predecessor, the impeached ex-President Yoon Suk-yeol.

But those efforts have been repeatedly rebuffed by North Korea.

In a scathing statement earlier this month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, lambasted the South Koreans’ efforts at détente, declaring, “We do not care about them and are not interested in them.”

North Korea, which has been hit with multiple rounds of US and United Nations sanctions over its weapons programmes, is estimated to have built about 50 nuclear warheads and to have nuclear material for dozens more, according to the Arms Control Association.