A spokesman for Pyongyang's military denounced the exercises starting Monday as "manoeuvres for a nuclear war" against North Korea.

"Should the US imperialists and the Lee Myung-Bak group threaten the DPRK (North Korea) with nukes, it will retaliate against them with nukes," said the spokesman, referring to South Korea's president.

"If they threaten the DPRK with missiles, it will react to them with missiles," he said.

The spokesman added: "If they tighten 'sanctions' and push 'confrontation' to an extreme phase, the DPRK will react to them with merciless retaliation of its own style and an all-out war of justice."

Toughened international sanctions were imposed on North Korea following its long-range rocket launch in April and its second nuclear test in May.

The warning from Pyongyang came in a statement issued on Saturday by the spokesman at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom. It was published on Sunday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Seoul and Washington have denied having any plans to invade North Korea, saying the drill, from August 17-27, is defensive in nature.

US and South Korean military authorities last month informed North Korea of their plan to hold the joint military drill, which will involve 10,000 US soldiers and an unspecified number of South Korean troops.

They said the Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) annual military drill involves computer-simulated war games designed to improve the allies' ability to defend South Korea from attack.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after their 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

More than 600,000 South Korean soldiers, backed by 28,500 US troops, are deployed in the southern part of the peninsula, confronting a potential threat from the North's 1.1 million-strong military.

South Korean President Lee on Saturday called for talks with North Korea aimed at ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons as well as making cuts in conventional weapons.

After the UN Security Council censured its April 5 long-range rocket launch, the North announced it was quitting the six-party nuclear disarmament talks and restarting its plutonium-producing programme.

It staged its second nuclear test on May 25.

A North Korean envoy to the United Nations said last month Pyongyang was, however, open to direct talks with Washington. The US has said this is possible within the context of the six-party forum.

The talks grouping the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan became deadlocked last December.

Philip Goldberg, a US special envoy responsible for implementing sanctions, will Thursday begin his tour which will bring him to Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and Japan to put pressure on North Korea, Yonhap news agency said.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Friday that to bring North Korea back to negotiations on halting its nuclear program would be complex but is still possible.

earlier related report
NKorea puts troops on alert over military drill: state media
North Korea Monday ordered its army and people on special alert as US and South Korean troops began a joint exercise, and vowed to respond to any military provocation with a nuclear attack.

The communist state's military supreme command, in a report on official media, described the exercise south of the border as a "grave threat" to peace and a prelude to an invasion.

It vowed to respond to "even the slightest military provocation" infringing on its sovereignty with a "merciless and prompt annihilating strike at the aggressors with all offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent involved."

The nuclear-armed North frequently denounces such exercises, which Seoul and Washington say are purely defensive, and vows to retaliate for any breach of its sovereignty.

As it routinely does, the US and South Korean military command has notified the North of the "Ulchi Freedom Guardian" exercise from August 17-27.

Some 10,000 US troops from bases in South Korea and overseas, plus about 56,000 South Korean troops, will take part.

The US-South Korean command has said the operations are defensive and "not meant to be provocative in any way."

The North's military said the exercise, one of two large-scale annual manoeuvres staged in the South, is based on a new scenario for invasion.

"The army and people of the DPRK (North Korea) will never remain a passive onlooker to the prevailing touch-and-go situation where dark clouds of a nuclear war are gathering to hang heavily over the inviolable territory of their country," according to the report on the Korean Central News Agency.

International tensions have grown this year after the North staged another long-range missile test and nuclear test and the United Nations imposed tougher sanctions.

The North said its regular military and other forces would closely track the exercise and launch an immediate strong attack in response to any intrusion.

It told its people to adopt a "tense and militarised posture" as they pursue a "150-day campaign" -- a drive now under way to raise productivity in key sectors of the economy.

The US stations 28,500 troops in the South.

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