North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said the country may conduct a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific Ocean as one of its "highest level" actions against the United States, Yonhap News Agency reported Friday.

(KNS)

Ri was speaking to reporters in New York after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned in a rare statement that Washington could face the "highest level of hard-line countermeasure" in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to "totally destroy" the country, Yonhap said.

"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," Ri was quoted as saying. "We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un."

Ri is in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

In a statement reported Friday, Kim reacted sharply to Trump's debut address to the U.N. General Assembly earlier this week in which the president said the United States would have "no choice but to totally destroy North Korea" if it needed to defend itself or its allies.

"Now that Trump has...insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world...we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history," Kim said in the statement, carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.