SEOUL: North Korea accused the US and South Korea of escalating tensions to the brink of nuclear war through their joint military drills, vowing to respond with "offensive action", state media KCNA reported on Thursday.
KCNA released a commentary by Choe Ju Hyon, whom it called an international security analyst, criticising the exercises as "a trigger for driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the point of explosion".
"The reckless military confrontational hysteria of the US and its followers against the DPRK is driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to an irreversible catastrophe ... to the brink of a nuclear war," the article said.
It was using the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
US and South Korean forces have been conducting a series of annual springtime exercises since March, including air and sea drills involving a US aircraft carrier and B-1B and B-52 bombers, and their first large-scale amphibious landing drills in five years.
The commentary singled out the aircraft carrier's participation as aimed at stoking confrontation, saying Pyongyang will respond to the drills by exercising its war deterrence through "offensive action".
"The drills have turned the Korean peninsula into a huge powder magazine which can be detonated any moment," it added.
North Korea has reacted furiously to the exercises, calling them a rehearsal for invasion.
It has been ramping up its military activity in recent weeks, unveiling new, smaller nuclear warheads, firing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in the US and testing what it called a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone.
South Korea's nuclear envoy held talks with his US and Japanese counterparts and condemned those tests, saying the North will pay the price for its provocations, Seoul's foreign ministry said following their meetings in Seoul on Thursday.
The envoys agreed to step up efforts to stem the North's illegal cyber activities including theft of virtual currencies and hacking, it added.
Japan's nuclear envoy also "strongly condemned" North Korea's "unprecedented frequency and manner" of ballistic missile launches as a serious and imminent threat to regional security, Japan's foreign ministry said. — Reuters
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