North Korea's top diplomat issued a disparaging response to President Donald Trump on Thursday, likening his United Nations speech to "the sound of a barking dog."

In his first speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said he would "totally destroy" North Korea if the isolated regime threatened the U.S. or its allies.

"If he was thinking he could scare us with the sound of a dog barking, that's really a dog dream," Ri Yong Ho, North Korean Foreign minister, told reporters near the UN headquarters in New York.

In Korean, a "dog dream" is one that typically refers to something absurd or unrealistic.