U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

North Korean officials revived the insult „dotard“ against President Donald Trump in response to his insults about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and threats to take military action against the Hermit Kingdom.

North Korea has repeatedly indicated over the past weeks that it plans to act — most likely reviving intercontinental ballistic missile testing — by the end of the year should it not get significant concessions from the United States.

„If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard,“ North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said in North Korea’s official news agency KCNA on Thursday, Yonhap News Agency reported.

New satellite images show North Korea has resumed activity at a missile testing site that Trump claimed had been dismantled last year.

Visit Business Insider’s home page for more stories.

North Korean officials are reviving jabs at President Donald Trump’s mental capacity in an indication that peace talks between the two nations are deteriorating. North Korea has repeatedly indicated over the past weeks that it plans to act — most likely reviving intercontinental ballistic missile testing — by the end of the year should it not get significant concessions from the United States.

„If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard,“ North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said in North Korea’s official news agency KCNA on Thursday, Yonhap News Agency reported.

In response to recent veiled threats from North Korea tied to a year-end deadline for serious and significant peace talks with the US, Trump has again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un „Little Rocket Man,“ an insult he used in 2017 when relations between the US and the hermit kingdom were at a nadir.

Trump has also threatened military action against North Korea, most recently during a visit to London on Tuesday, ABC News reported.

„We have the most powerful military we ever had, and we are by far the most powerful country in the world and hopefully we don’t have to use it. But if we do, we will use it,“ Trump said at the time.

Kim Jong Un first called Trump a dotard in response to Trump’s insults, saying he would „tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.“ The somewhat obscure word, referring to someone who is going senile — was unfamiliar to many Americans and spiked searches for the definition, Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account indicated at the time.

The word comes from the Middle English „doten,“ which was used starting in the 14th century to describe an imbecile.

The next year, Trump rhapsodically described his relationship with Kim, saying that they had written each other letters and „fell in love.“ Despite a series of high-profile meetings in Singapore, Vietnam, and at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and the cessation of testing nuclear and long-range weapons on the part of North Korea, no significant breakthroughs have been achieved, and experts have indicated that North Korea will likely resume testing ICBMs soon.

On Thursday, an image of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station — which Trump claimed was dismantled after last year’s summit in Singapore — showed a shipping container and other activity at the site, which indicates a potential move to resume engine testing at the facility, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Canter for Nonproliteration Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told CNN.

North Korea Sohae testing facility PlanetLabs via the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury iInstitute for International Studies

North Korea had dismantled the test stand at the site; it was reassembled in March, but, Lewis said, there had been no activity spotted there since.