The North's foreign ministry warned in a statement late Wednesday that the Stalinist state would have "no option but to take a substantial countermeasure" against the United States if the strategy proved to be fact.

"Now that nuclear lunatics are in office in the White House, we are compelled to examine all the agreements with the United States in case the US plan for a nuclear attack on the DPRK (North Korea) turns out to be true," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

According to leaks to the US media, the US Defense Department's Nuclear Policy Review calls for a shift away from the Cold War posture of using the US nuclear arsenal to deter a nuclear strike from the former Soviet Union.

It sees China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Russia and Syria as potential targets for US nuclear strikes, according to the Los Angeles Times report.

US officials have tried to allay international fears saying the report merely listed options at the disposal of US authorities.

But the North slammed the strategy as "a daydream of the reckless persons who do not hesitate to stifle" the communist country with nuclear weapons, according to a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

In a longer statement issued Thursday, the North's foreign ministry insisted Washington gave "specific assurances" in agreements with Pyongyang in 1993 and 1994 that it would not use nuclear weapons against the North.

"Based on these assurances, the DPRK has sincerely fulfilled over the last eight years its commitments under the agreed framework aimed at the improved DPRK-US relations," it said.

The Cold War enemies issued a joint statement in 1993 to defuse a nuclear crisis triggered by the North's withdrawal from an international nuclear safeguard accord.

In 1994, they signed a landmark agreement under which the North froze its suspected nuclear weapons programme. In return, the United States pledged diplomatic and economic incentives.

The 1994 Agreed Framework set the stage for a string of rapprochement talks between North Korea and the United States.

But the North has threatened to end the 1994 agreement slamming what it calls the "hostile" policy of US President George W. Bush. It has also rejected Bush's demand for a full inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities.

The North has denounced the United States for delaying a 4.6-billion-dollar project to build two nuclear energy reactors that produce less weapons-grade plutonium.

The reactor project was due to be completed by 2003, but delays have pushed back the finish until at least 2008.

US officials have warned that the construction might suffer further delays if the North refuses to allow checks on its nuclear activities.

The Korean peninsula remains the world's last Cold War frontier after its division into the pro-Western South and the Stalinist North in 1945. The South is home to some 37,000 US troops who act as a deterrent to any fresh military attack from the North since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North's state media has in recent days also launched vitriolic attacks on a giant joint military exercise by US and South Korean troops next week against a simulated North Korean attack.

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