NORTH KOREA today denounced the Trump administration’s latest sanctions targeting cybercrimes, accusing the United States of harbouring “wicked” hostility toward Pyongyang and vowing counter measures.

The statement by Kim Un Chol, North Korea’’s vice foreign minister, came after the US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on eight individuals and two firms, including North Korean bankers, for allegedly laundering money from cybercrime schemes.

The Treasury accused North Korea of sponsoring hacking schemes that have stolen more than $3 billion (£2.2bn) in mostly digital assets over the past three years and using the funds to help finance the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Kim said: “Now that the present US administration has clarified its stand to be hostile towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the last, we will also take proper measures to counter it with patience for any length of time.”

He said US sanctions and pressure tactics will never change the “present strategic situation” between the countries or alter the North’’s “thinking and viewpoint.”

In a recent speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged Washington to drop its demand for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a precondition for resuming diplomacy.