The following is the full text of a statement issued by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (North Korea's) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as carried in English by the North Korean news agency KCNA:
We cannot but take a serious note of the fact that the US is going to stage the largest-ever joint military exercises surpassing the ill-famed "Team Spirit" joint military exercise in scale with the whole area of South Korea as an operational theatre at a time when a scenario for nuclear attack in which the DPRK is made the target of nuclear assault is floated in the US these days after [President George W.] Bush proclaimed this year as a "year of war" and listed the DPRK as a member of the "axis of evil" and whipped up war hysteria on the forefront and at US bases during his recent visit to South Korea.
Kim Jong-il
The joint military exercises to be staged by the Bush administration are all-round war exercises aimed to put the "plan for pre-emptive strikes" at the North into practice and very dangerous war gambles to seize the chance to provoke a nuclear war.
The present US administration's hard-line and hostile policy towards the DPRK has thus turned into a policy of war against it. As a result, the situation on the Korean Peninsula has now gone beyond the limits of danger and turned into a touch-and-go situation.
Facts go to clearly prove that "resumption of dialogue" much touted by the Bush Administration is nothing but a deceptive trick to cover up their sinister war plan.
[The DPRK] has a will and strength to mercilessly strike and wipe out any aggressors
The South Korean bellicose forces joining the US in the war exercises targeted against fellow countrymen is an hostile act diametrically running counter to the 15 June North-South Joint Declaration in which the North and the South committed themselves to reconciliation and unity of the nation.
Warnings
No one can predict how adversely these war manoeuvres will affect the inter-Korean relations.
President Kim Dae-jung
The US is well advised to properly understand who is its opponent and behave with discretion.
The DPRK neither wants war nor avoids it but has a will and strength to mercilessly strike and wipe out any aggressors no matter where they are coming from.
The People's Army and people of Korea keep themselves fully ready to cope with the prevailing serious situation. If the enemy ignites a war of aggression against the DPRK in the end, it will wipe out the aggressors to the last one and achieve the historic cause of national reunification without fail.
BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press Writer Vijay Joshi, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago
SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's president ordered his top security officials Sunday to deal "resolutely and squarely" with new North Korean warnings of a nuclear war on the eve of his U.S. visit. In Washington, Vice President Joe Biden said "God only knows" what North Korea wants from the latest showdown.
President Lee Myung-bak travels to Washington on Monday for talks with President Barack Obama that are expected to focus on the North's rogue nuclear and missile programs.
The trip comes after North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war with any country that stops its ships on the high seas under new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council in response to its May 25 nuclear test.
It also vowed Saturday to "weaponize" all its plutonium and acknowledged a long-suspected uranium enrichment program for the first time. Both plutonium and uranium are key ingredients of atomic bombs.
A commentary published Saturday in the North's state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. was deploying a vast number of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.
North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," it said.
Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, denied the allegation, saying the U.S. no longer has nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.
President Lee summoned his top security ministers Sunday and ordered them to "resolutely and squarely cope" with the North's threats, his office said. The Unification Ministry, responsible for ties with the North, issued a statement demanding that it stop inflaming tension and resume talks with the South.
"North Korea should give up its nuclear program ... and stop any kind of military threat," it said. "We urge North Korea to respond in a sincere dialogue to improve South-North Korean relations."
The new U.N. sanctions approved Friday are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its nuclear program. They also authorize searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.
Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's crucial that the U.S. and other nations "make sure those sanctions stick."
North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had a stroke 10 months ago and analysts believe there may be a plan in place to name his inexperienced 26-year-old son, Kim Jong Un, as the future leader.
"God only knows what he wants," Biden said of Kim. "There's all kinds of discussions. Whether this is about succession, wanting his son to succeed him. Whether or not he's looking for respect. Whether or not he really wants a nuclear capability to threaten the region. ... We can't guess his motives.
"We just have to deal with the reality that a North Korea that is either proliferating weapons and or missiles, or a North Korea that is using those weapons ... is a serious danger and threat to the world, and particularly East Asia," the vice president said.
Lee Sang-hyun, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, a South Korean security think tank, said he believes the North will continue to conduct nuclear tests until it masters the technology to mount nuclear warheads on missiles and will give credit for it to Kim Jong Un.
"Kim Jong Un's status is still unstable. Kim Jong Il appears to be trying to give the son a powerful means to strengthen his succession," Lee said. "Kim Jong Un could also get the credit for nuclear weapons development."
North Korea is already believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it accuses of plotting to invade and topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly denied having any such plans.
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