SEOUL, November 21. /TASS/. North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui expressed her regret over UN chief Antonio Guterres’ condemnation of the situation around the Korean Peninsula and called him "a puppet of the United States," the country’s official KCNA news agency reported on Monday.

"The [UN] secretary-general connived at the fact that the US and its vassal forces were referring the DPRK's exercise of its inviolable sovereignty to the UN Security Council to put pressure on it. This clearly proves that he is a puppet of the US," she said.

"I often take the U.N. secretary-general for a member of the US White House or its State Department. I express my strong regret over the fact that the UN secretary-general has taken a very deplorable attitude, oblivious of the purpose and principles of the UN Charter and its proper mission which is to maintain impartiality, objectivity and equity in all matters," North Korea’s top diplomat said. She referred to a November 18 remark by Guterres, who, she said, called "the just exercise of the DPRK’s right to self-defense yet another provocation."

The North Korean diplomat pointed to "provocative nuclear war rehearsals" by the United States and its allies in the past year. "Nevertheless, the UN secretary-general shifted the blame for the case onto the DPRK rather than the US," Choe Son Hui lamented.

On Friday, Guterres condemned the launch of yet another ICBM by North Korea and called on Pyongyang to resume dialogue for peace on the Korean Peninsula.