North Korea on Sunday denounced an upcoming US-South Korean joint military drill as "an intolerable crime" running counter to six-nation talks aimed at the nuclear disarmament of the Stalinist state.

The March 2-7 joint exercise will be the first to test Seoul's ability to wage war under a scenario in which South Korea has regained wartime control of its troops from the United States.

Rodong Sinmun, the North's communist party newspaper and main official mouthpiece, had a different view of the drill, which replaces a previous annual joint exercise between the two countries.

"The war exercise in South Korea is an intolerable crime against peace and reunification casting a chill over the Korean nation's desire for reunification and putting a brake on inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation," Rodong said.

(Article continues below)

The exercise "runs counter to the six-party talks," Rodong said. "Their aim is to ignite a war against the North when a chance presents itself, while wasting time under the pretext of the six-party talks."

North Korea staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, but later returned to six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

The countries agreed in February last year to a landmark aid-for-disarmament deal aimed at ending the North's nuclear programmes.

But the deal has been held up since Pyongyang missed a year-end deadline to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all relevant programmes.

US and South Korean military officials have defended the joint drill as a "defensive" military readiness exercise.

Full article here.