North Korea denounces upcoming US-South Korea military drills

SEOUL- North Korea on Friday denounced major U.S.-South Korean military drills and said they were more provocative than last year's exercises, state media reported.

U.S.-Japan-South Korea military cooperation is turning into a nuclear alliance and North Korea will respond to a new level of threat with a new level of deterrent, state media KCNA cited a spokesperson for North Korea's Foreign Ministry as saying.

South Korea and the United States will conduct the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) joint military drills from August 17 to 27, incorporating exercises to counter drones, GPS disruption and cyberattacks as they adapt to North Korea's evolving capabilities.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said this was North Korea's first official response on the upcoming exercise, which Pyongyang routinely denounces as a provocation that heightens tensions.

North Korea also said on Friday it would further strengthen its nuclear deterrence, accusing the United States of pursuing a new nuclear strategy that lowers the threshold for using weapons and could push global security "to the brink of a nuclear war."

In a commentary, state media KCNA cited U.S. nuclear cooperation with South Korea and extended-deterrence commitments to Japan, saying the Korean Peninsula could become a priority target of the alleged strategy.

On Wednesday, North Korea fired a ​ballistic missile toward the sea off the Korean Peninsula's east coast.

The missile was launched from the North's Wonsan area, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, six days after North Korea fired another ballistic missile from the same area.

-Reporting by Joyce Lee;Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Ed Davies/Reuters