North Korea on Monday defended recent racist attacks on U.S. President Barack Obama by its citizens and officials, calling them "a proper reaction" to slander by the American leader.



The North's Foreign Ministry said Obama's comments critical of North Korea during his recent trip to Seoul were "an unpardonable insult" to its people and their resentment at the U.S. is running high.



"The resentment expressed by individuals of (North Korea) at Obama recently was a proper reaction to him who malignantly insulted and slandered the dignified" North Korea, the ministry said in comments carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.



The North's response came just days after the White House condemned the North's personal attacks on Obama.



"While the North Korean Government-controlled media are distinguished by their histrionics, these comments are particularly ugly and disrespectful," Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said last week in a statement.



On May 2, the KCNA carried a lengthy Korean-language diatribe against Obama, including comments purporting to have been made by a North Korean worker, a military officer and two other officials.



The North Korean worker called Obama "a monkey in Africa" with a disgusting "crossbreed appearance." He also said Obama should go to the home of monkeys before suffering further humiliation in the world of people.



The insulting comments -- which were apparently orchestrated by the county's propaganda machine -- came in response to Obama's recent comments critical of North Korea.



Obama declared last month in Seoul that Washington wouldn't hesitate to use its military if South Korea is attacked, warning that North Korea can't guarantee its security even if it continues its nuclear weapons programs.



Obama, together with South Korean president Park Geun-hye, visited the command center of the allies' combined forces in Seoul as a show of unity against North Korea, which has shown signs of preparations for another nuclear test.



Obama also said that the North Korea situation is of direct concern to the U.S., and said threats will get North Korea nothing other than greater isolation.



In a separate dispatch about Park on May 2, the KCNA said in English that Park invited "her American master reminiscent of a wicked black monkey" and called the unmarried female South Korean leader "an old prostitute coquetting with outside forces." (Yonhap)