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In an editorial to mark the anniversary of the 1950-1953 conflict, the North's state-run newspaper warned that "dark clouds of nuclear war" are gathering over the divided peninsula. Pyongyang vowed to strengthen its atomic arsenal to cope with the war it said the United States planned to launch.
"A touch-and-go situation has been created on the Korean peninsula, with the dark clouds of a nuclear war gathering as the hours tick by," said the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the ruling Workers' Party. It said the United States was plotting to invade the North to justify its development of nuclear weapons.
"We will never give up our nuclear deterrent and even strengthen it" as a war could break out any time, it said.
Another mouthpiece of Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency, said that if war breaks out again North Korea would "wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all and achieve the cause of national reunification without fail."
"More than half a century has passed since the Korean War, but the Korean people still have vivid memories of the crimes of the U.S. imperialists who provoked the war," it said.
On June 25, 1950, North Korea – backed by China and the Soviet Union – launched what it called "the Fatherland Liberation War" with a surprise invasion. Just days later, it had occupied almost all of the South’s territory.
The communist troops were repulsed after U.S. President Harry Truman rallied the United Nations to send troops from 16 countries to the South. The war ended on July 27, 1953, when the U.S.-led U.N. Command signed the armistice agreement with North Korea and China, whose 1 million troops supported the North.
North Korea still claims that "the U.S. imperialists, hand-in-hand with their South Korean puppets, invaded the North to conquer the northern half of the peninsula," despite plentiful evidence to the contrary. The North has used this logic to stir up its citizens' antagonism against the United States and South Korea, a strategy to tame its impoverished population.
About 512,000 South Korean troops and civilians were killed and some 320,300 listed as missing during the three-year conflict, according to an updated report from Seoul's Defense Ministry. Some 680,000 South Koreans were wounded.
The United States sent 4.85 million troops, of which 54,246 were killed and 468,659 were wounded. Over 1,000 British soldiers were killed and some 3,000 were injured. They were among 57,933 U.N. troops killed and 481,155 wounded.
There is no official record of how many North Koreans were killed or lost during the war, but Seoul's Defense Ministry estimates over 2.5 million North Korean troops and civilians were killed or wounded, in the most brutal armed conflict since World War II after the Vietnamese War, which claimed an estimated 3.2 million lives.
The Korean peninsula still remains technically in a state of war as the conflict ended without a peace treaty. Backed by 28,500 American troops, the South's 670,000 troops are facing off against the North's 1.2 million-strong armed forces.
In Seoul, war veterans, bereaved and separated families, and many others held memorial ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
Top South Korean and U.S. defense officials also held a ceremony, praising soldiers who died in the fighting against the "tyranny" of North Korea.
"A North Korean victory in the Korean War would have brought the nightmare of tyranny to this great land, thrusting the citizens of the Republic of (South) Korea into a darkness that their northern counterparts have yet to emerge from," Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said in a speech.
In defiance of tougher U.N. sanctions for its nuclear weapons test last month, the North has pressed ahead with aggressive maneuvers, bringing the peninsula to the brink of a second war.
In its latest move, the North has been gearing up to test another set of missiles, according to South Korean military officials. The North has designated a no-sail zone off its east coast from June 25 to July 10 for military drills.
The country is expected to fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 500 kilometers or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 160 kilometers during the no-sail period, defense officials said.
The defiant country is also believed to be preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, with a range of up to 6,500 kilometers, which could hit the west coast of the United States.
The North described the moves as a response to U.N. Resolution 1874, which calls for tougher cargo inspections, a tighter arms embargo and stronger financial sanctions to punish the communist nation for its nuclear test on May 25.
Under the resolution, a U.S. destroyer is shadowing a North Korean cargo vessel suspected of shipping weapons. The ship, Kang Nam, left the North Korean port of Nampo, west of Pyongyang, last week and is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean officials.
North Korea has warned that any attempt to search its ships will be considered an "act of war" and will be dealt with via a "military response."
