A North Korean foreign ministry official on Wednesday slammed European Union calls for Pyongyang to stop escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, in a statement condemning the bloc for siding with Seoul in a mounting war of words between the two Koreas.

The comments by vice foreign minister Kim Son Gyong, carried Thursday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), come in response to a Tuesday statement by the European External Action Service condemning the North’s demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong as “unacceptable.” 

That statement warned that the DPRK’s actions “destabilise the situation and