N. Korea Threatens Preemptive Attack

North Korea lashed out Tuesday at current U.S.-South Korean military drills, saying they nullified the armistice in the 1950-53 Korean War and warning that it may take retaliatory action.

Such criticism from the North was not new, but it came amid renewed concern that the communist nation may be planning to test a nuclear weapon following provocative missile launches last month that drew U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The U.S. and South Korea on Monday launched joint annual military exercises, which the North had previously said would be considered a declaration of war.

The North Korean military "reserves the right to undertake a pre-emptive action for self-defense against the enemy at a crucial time it deems necessary to defend itself," the North's Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea commonly issues heated statements warning that the peninsula stands on the brink of renewed war.

The U.S. military has said the exercises — mostly simulation-driven drills named "Ulchi Focus Lens" that include some 17,000 troops — are defensive in nature and not a provocation. The exercises run through Sept. 1.

The North's military said it "would not be bound to the (armistice agreement) in taking on its own initiative military measures for protecting the security and sovereignty of the country in the future" in light of the exercises, which it termed a "war action declaring the (armistice) null and void."

The North also described the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last month after its missile launches as tantamount to a declaration of war that the U.S. pushed through "by wire pulling its followers."

However, key North Korean allies China and Russia also signed off on the resolution, which bans U.N. member countries from missile-related dealings with the North, but hasn't resulted in any further actions or relaxation of tension in the region.

The two Koreas remain technically at war, because the armistice has never been replaced by a peace treaty. Under an agreement reached in September at international nuclear talks, all parties agreed to eventually discuss a permanent peace on the peninsula.

However, those arms talks — which include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas — haven't met since November because the North has refused to attend in anger over U.S. financial restrictions for Pyongyang's alleged illegal activity.