North Korea threatened Thursday to take "strong" action against US moves to "stifle" the communist nation. In a statement published by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, a foreign ministry spokesman accused Washington of tightening sanctions against Pyongyang and of heightening tensions on the Korean peninsula.
"Now that the US intention to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) has become very clear, the DPRK will react to it with a strong measure for self-defence," he said.
Tensions have increased on the Korean peninsula over South Korea's annual war games with the United States, which will begin Saturday.
Pyongyang says the United States is using the drills to prepare for an invasion of the Stalinist state, which has been locked in a dispute with the outside world over its nuclear ambitions since October 2002.
"It is quite obvious that the saber-rattling the Bush administration is going to launch against this backdrop will threaten regional peace and security and adversely affect the favourably developing North-South relations," the spokesman said.
North Korea has called off high-level talks with South Korea, saying the military exercises would also set back efforts to end the stand-off over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions. On Wednesday it said it would not rule out first use of nuclear weapons against the United States.
Six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to resolve the nuclear standoff are in limbo after Washington accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting US dollars and laundering money.
The US Treasury Department in September banned US financial institutions from dealing with Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank that it suspects of being a willing front for laundering money for North Korea. A month later the United States blacklisted eight North Korean companies allegedly involved in the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In an angry response, Pyongyang, since November, has boycotted the six-nation talks.
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