NORTH KOREA has blasted the United States for expanding its joint military exercises with South Korea.

Pyongyang warned on Tuesday that they would respond to the war games with “more powerful follow-up measures.”

The warning came as the US and South Korea launched a massive drill involving 200 war planes and after the North increased the testing frequency of its own weapons.

The US and their allies have resumed large-scale war games this year after first suspending and then downsizing them because of the global pandemic.

The so-called Vigilant Storm drills, which will continue until Friday, followed South Korea’s own annual 12-day Hoguk exercises, which also involved the US military.

The statement from Pyongyang said the drills exposed the US as the “chief culprit in destroying peace and security.”

It said North Korea was ready to take “all necessary measures” to defend against outside military threats.

“If the US continuously persists in the grave military provocations, the DPRK will take into account more powerful follow-up measures,” the statement said, without specifying what steps they might take. 

But South Korean officials said North Korea could be planning to detonate its first nuclear test device since September 2017.

Such a move could ignite an already volatile situation in the area.

Opposition to the war games have not been restricted to North Korea.

Large demonstrations have also broken out across the South, where protesters have called for an end to the war exercises, the country’s subservience to the US and the failure of the government to normalise relations with their northern neighbours.

One protest last week is reported by organisers to have involved 500,000 people.

Protesters said the actions of the government are endangering the entire Korean peninsula.

The response of the new Seoul government of Yoon Suk Yeol was to double down and say an even tougher response against the North was needed.

The Korean war, which began in 1950, has never officially ended.

The US has refused to withdraw its troops and armaments from the peninsula in line with the armistice agreement that ended the fighting.

Instead, the US continues to maintain a military presence on the Korean peninsula of some 28,500 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.