DPRK fires missiles as ROK-US war games kick off

"Those drills are the most undisguised infringement upon the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity and a grave military provocation to it for which they can never excuse," the statement said.

The Korean Peninsula situation "is again inching close to the brink of a war," it noted.

Pyongyang warned that its armed forces "will watch with a high degree of combat alertness the dangerous saber-rattling of the US imperialists and their followers" and "will never allow their slightest intrusion into the DPRK's territory."

The "Key Resolve" command post exercise will be held from March 2 to March 13, mobilizing about 10,000 ROK troops and 8,600 US forces, including 6,750 American soldiers from overseas, according to the Combined Forces Command.

The "Foal Eagle" field training exercise will be conducted from March 2 to April 24, involving about 200,000 ROK troops and 3,700 American soldiers, including 3,500 US forces from overseas.

ROK and the United States claim they are annually-held drills of "defensive" nature to ensure defense readiness of the combined forces, but the DPRK said it is simply "crafty sophism to conceal their reckless preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK."

In early January, Pyongyang offered to "temporarily suspend" its nuclear tests if the United States agrees to temporarily halt joint military exercises with ROK this year. But the proposal was flatly rejected by the two countries.

The US State Department responded by saying that the DPRK statement "inappropriately" links routine US-ROK exercises to the possibility of a nuclear test and called the proposal an "implicit threat".