The White House on Monday denied it had declared war on North Korea, dismissing claims from the DPRK’s foreign minister as “absurd.”

Speaking at a regular media briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to claims made by the DPRK’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho earlier in the day.

“We’ve not declared war on North Korea and frankly the suggestion of that is absurd,” Sanders said.

The North Korean foreign minister on Monday said a tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump – which claimed the North Korean leadership “won’t be around much longer” if it stayed on its current course