The warning was issued by an unnamed spokesman for the KPA's mission in Panmunjom, a truce village in the inter-Korean border, according to the country's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"The KPA side is of the view that a preemptive attack is not monopoly of the US and the DPRK (North Korea), too, has the right to preempt an attack," the spokesman said, noting that North Korea and the US are still technically at war.

The United States has said its annual joint war games, which will begin on March 25, were aimed at deterring any North Korean military threat.

Pyongyang says the United States is using the drills to prepare an invasion of the isolated Stalinist state, which has been locked in a dispute with the outside world over its nuclear ambitions since October 2002.

The spokesman said North Korea's military would "follow with a high degree of vigilance the grave situation prevailing on the Korean Peninsula."

In an earlier statement, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a North Korean agency handling affairs with South Korea, labeled the military drills a "criminal" act intended to prepare for a US invasion of North Korea.

Last week North Korea called off high-level talks with South Korea, saying the military exercises would also set back efforts to end the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.

"The US should know that the projected saber-rattling will becloud the prospect of a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue and the six-party talks, and drive the inter-Korean relations to a more serious phase," the committee said.

The talks bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been stalled since November last year after North Korea denied US charges that it was counterfeiting dollars and demanded that Washington lift financial sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.

North Korea's relations with South Korea have been developing despite the nuclear standoff. However, the communist country frequently puts off meetings with its neighbor to protest joint exercises with the United States.

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