The White House this afternoon dismissed North Korea's threat to pull out of the armistice that halted the Korean war as part of a "rather predictable pattern" of escalating rhetoric.
"What you've seen is a rather predictable series of escalatory statements from North Korea," said spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer. "This remains an issue for the international community to deal with, and that remains our approach."
North Korea last night threatened to abandon the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War if the United States went ahead with alleged plans for a naval blockade.
A spokesman of the North's Korean People's Army said that "the situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting extremely tense" because the United States is planning to send reinforcements in a standoff over the North's nuclear activities.
North Korea "will be left with no option but to take a decisive step to abandon its commitment to implement the Armistice Agreement as a signatory to it and free itself from the binding force of all its provisions," said the spokesman, quoted by the North's state-run KCNA news agency.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended with the armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Koreas technically in a state of war. A North Korean withdrawal from the armistice would greatly increase tensions and uncertainty along the world's most heavily armed border.
The North, locked in an international dispute over its nuclear weapons development, has often accused the United States of planning an attack against the communist country. KCNA said on Monday that the North would triumph in the nuclear standoff.
Pyongyang's provocations are widely considered attempts to pressure Washington into direct talks with the reclusive regime. The impoverished North is desperate for food and energy aid, and it has demanded a non-aggression pact with the United States.
AP