A joint military exercise this week between the United States and South Korea risks pouring “fuel on the fire,” North Korea warned.

It is not the first time the North has condemned the annual military exercise as an act of aggression, but the denunciation follows a tense few weeks that left the world contemplating the possibility of military conflict between nuclear powers.

Earlier this month, after North Korea’s repeated tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles led Donald Trump to threaten the country with “fire and fury”, Pyongyang detailed plans to strike the American territory of Guam.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un subsequently softened his tone, drawing praise from Mr Trump.

But the communist state is continuing to cast the United States as an aggressor seeking an excuse for war, framing the military exercise as a belligerent act.

Officials from the US and South Korea say the Ulchi Freedom Guardian Drills, which run through the end of August and marshal tens of thousands of soldiers, are defensive.

A spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Unification reiterated that point and urged the North to “stop its provocations and return to the negotiation table”, according to Yonhap News.

“We have no intention of raising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly said.

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But an article in a North Korean newspaper that serves as the ruling power’s mouthpiece characterised the events as a provocation, likening the military drills to “rehearsal for nuclear war” and calling them “a naked expression of hostility”.

“No one can guarantee that this will not escalate into a real war,” the article said.