"If the US side continues violating and misusing the armistice agreement as it pleases, there will be no need for the DPRK (North Korea) to remain bound to the AA (armistice agreement) uncomfortably," said a spokesman for the Korean People's Army.

"The future development will entirely depend on the attitude of the US side," the spokesman said, in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The United States has ordered 12 B-52 bombers and an equal number of B-1 bombers to prepare to move to the region.

Japanese media reported on Sunday that the United States was planning to boost its military forces there with fears rising over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

US investigators had boarded a North Korean ship carrying Scud missiles to Yemen in the Indian Ocean in December.

"This means that it will conduct naval blockade operations which can be seen only between the warring states during the war and this is little short of an open declaration of war in the long-run," the North Korean statement said.

North Korea on Friday accused the United States of violating the accord by building up troops inside the Demilitarized Zone that has divided the Korean peninsula since the end of the war in 1953.

Relations plummeted in October when Washington accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium-enrichment program with a view to producing nuclear weapons.

Washington cut fuel aid to North Korea but Pyongyang has responded by expelling UN inspectors, pulling out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and reactivating a mothballed plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

"At a time when the situation on the Korean peninsula is getting extremely tense due to the US nuclear racket, the US side is contemplating about the additional deployment of huge forces including aircraft carriers and strategic bombers in and around the Korean peninsula in violation of the AA," the North Korean army statement said.

"The situation is, therefore, getting more serious as the days go by as it is putting its plan for preemptive attacks on the DPRK into practice with increased zeal."

The United States has 37,000 troops in South Korea and 47,000 in Japan.

(China Daily February 18, 2003)