North Korea warns Trump will have to face consequences of Obama administration's policies

A day after Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president of the US, North Korea stressed that the Kim Jong-un regime would continue to pursue its nuclear programme. An editorial in North Korea's Rodong Sinmun warned the incoming Trump administration would have to face consequences because of President Barack Obama's policies.

"If there is anything the Obama administration has done... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger," the editorial in read.

"It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche [self-reliant] nuclear state."

Mentioning what US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's had said in October about attempts to denuclearise North Korea were a "lost cause", the editorial stated that a general consensus has already been established in the US about Pyongyang becoming a nuclear state, Agence France Press reported.

"America's policymakers should note Clapper's remarks," it said, adding: "Washington's hope for North Korea's denuclearisation is an outdated illusion."

In 2016, Pyongyang conducted two nuclear tests and over a dozen missile tests, many of which were reported to be successful.

Trump, who will succeed Obama at the White House, has not yet outlined his policy on North Korea. However, in June, he reportedly said during an election rally in Atlanta that he would welcome Kim if he visited America. "If he came here, I would accept him," Trump had said.

The Obama administration has been pushing measures to impose tighter sanctions against the reclusive state to deter it from pursuing with its nuclear programme.