North Korea has warned a "suicidal" Australia that Darwin could become the launch pad of a nuclear war as it plays host to the "largest scale US military presence in Australia since the Second World War".

The threat, made in state-run media, came as tensions between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States continue to intensify and 1250 US marines land in Australia.

The massive troop arrival follows more than two weeks of military muscle flexing from both nations, with North Korea staging its largest ever live-fire drill the most recent act of posturing.

Warnings about Darwin becoming the theatre of nuclear conflict were made in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the main organ of the ruling Worker's Party of North Korea.

View photos North Korea warns Darwin could be a nuclear flashpoint as 1550 US Marines begin their deployment there. Source: AP More

The newspaper claimed the US was "fanatically, crazily" using the Top End port city "to optimise its nuclear war readiness".

"This is the largest scale US military presence in Australia after the Second World War," the newspaper wrote on Monday.

It also rebuked Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's calls made in the past week for North Korea to stop developing nuclear weapons and feed its people instead.

The paper said Ms Bishop was "blindly and zealously toeing the US line" as she "spouted a string of rubbish against the DPRK over its entirely just steps for self-defence".

View photos Darwin is now host to the largest peacetime US military presence in Australia. Source: AAP More

"It is entirely attributable to the nuclear threat escalated by the US and its anachronistic policy hostile to the DPRK that the situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to the brink of war in an evil cycle of increasing tensions," it wrote.

"If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK."

The editorial came alongside the DPRK's firing exercise that coincided with the 85th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean people's army.

South Korea's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a brief statement that the North Korean exercise was under way on Tuesday afternoon.

View photos North Korea has issued more warnings to Australia and the US about a growing military presence in the region. Source: AP More

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