North Korean state media have warned the United States against "reckless military provocations" amid tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs.
The ruling party's Rodong Sinmun newspaper on July 9 published a commentary saying that the United States "is pushing the risk of a nuclear war on the peninsula to a tipping point."
The commentary comes one day after the United States and South Korea conducted a rare live-fire drill simulating attacks on "enemy" missile batteries and reinforced command posts.
During the drill, U.S. B-1B bombers flew close to the intensely fortified border between North and South Korea and dropped 900-kilogram bombs.
The North Korean newspaper commentary called the drill "a dangerous military gambit of warmongers who are trying to ignite the fuse of a nuclear war on the peninsula."
On July 3, North Korea tested a ballistic missile that analysts believe could reach the U.S. state of Alaska. Pyongyang has claimed the missile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
