Hostilities have been increasing recently on the Korean Peninsula after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced its intention to launch a communications satellite in early April.

The United States, South Korea and Japan have said the satellite is a disguised test-launch of a long-range ballistic missile and have threatened to intercept it using their missile defense systems.

DPRK: Interception means war

On March 9, the DPRK said it will launch a war on the territory of the US, Japan and South Korea, if its satellite launching "for peaceful purpose" was intercepted.

On Tuesday, the DPRK warned that it would leave the six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program if the US and Japan intercept the rocket.

It insisted that an interception of its rocket, which was part of a peaceful space program of the DPRK, would ruin the foundation of the six-nation talks.

That's because the US and Japan would have denied the right of the DPRK to develop space for peaceful purposes and violated its sovereignty under the name of the United Nations, the official KCNA news agency cited a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

It is a legitimate right for every country to develop a peaceful space program, the spokesman said, adding that the US and Japan should take the responsibility for ruining the six-party talks.

Key resolve: Offensive or defensive

On March 9, the US and South Korea launched the annual joint military exercise Key Resolve-Foal Eagle. The exercise, timed just before the DPRK's planned launch, was larger in scale and duration than previous years.

The exercise was extended from the original four to five days to 12 days and involved 26,000 US servicemen, including 13,100 stationed outside South Korea. The U.S. also mobilized the USS John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the US Navy's 3rd Fleet and a few Aegis destroyers for the exercise.

US Army General Walter Sharp, commander of US forces in South Korea, insisted that it was "a routine training exercise that takes place every year at about the same time. It is not tied in any way to any political or real-world event."

The exercise prompted the DPRK to put its military on "full combat readiness", saying it viewed the joint land and sea exercise as prelude to an invasion.