We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

"The puppet group of south Korea is resorting to smear propaganda campaign to seek its comfort by forcing others into death like itself," KCNA said today.

Warning of impending nuclear war, the chilling rant by the state run news agency continued: "The arrows indicating the merciless retaliatory strikes have already been drawn directing at the U.S. mainland, U.S. military bases in the Pacific and all other bases where the U.S. imperialist aggression forces station.

"The powerful strike means of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have been put in their places and the coordinates of targets put into the warheads.

"Just pressing the button will be enough to turn the strongholds of the enemies into the sea of fire."

"The U.S. and south Korean war maniacs are gravely mistaken and misjudged if they think they can have lucky chance."

Meanwhile, US secretary of State John Kerry has said North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power and will come to the defence of the South if necessary, in talks over the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula today.

North Korea would be making a "huge mistake" if it launched one of its medium-range missiles during the current standoff between it, the United States and South Korea, Mr Kerry warned.

Mr Kerry is discussing the crisis with President Park Geun-hye and his South Korean counterpart as well as US military commanders in the country.



North Korea will gain nothing by threatening tests of its missile or nuclear programs, Mr Kerry said, emphatically stating the U.S. and its Asian ally won't accept the North as a nuclear power.



The US Secretary of State warned that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un needs to understand "what would be the outcome of any conflict."



If North Korea were to launch missiles "it would contribute to an already volatile, potentially dangerous situation," he added.

He said: "It would indicate who was being provactive with an exclamation point again.



"We will defend our allies. We will stand with South Korea, Japan and others. We will defend ourselves.



Mr Kerry said US preference would be to get into talks on the North Korean nuclear issue "to ultimately diffuse the situayion," but the reclusive state must be serious about denuclearisation.

As U.S. and South Korean troops braced for what some feared may be an imminent North Korean missile launch, President Barack Obama demanded an end to the escalating war rhetoric from Pyongyang.



In his first public comments since North Korea warned of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, Obama called it time for the isolated nation "to end the belligerent approach they have taken and to try to lower temperatures."



"Nobody wants to see a conflict on the Korean Peninsula," Obama said yesterday, speaking from the Oval Office alongside U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Intelligence reports from the Japanese, South Koreans and Americans have indicated that a North Korean missile test could take place at any time, though there has been silence from the leadership in Pyongyang.