North Korea warned on Saturday it could take physical action against South Korea in response to the South’s “ceaseless provocative war moves.”

This warning came after the South Korean military conducted maritime live-fire drills on Thursday off Bangnyeongdo and Yeonpyeongdo near the tense inter-Korean sea border that the communist state has long claimed should be redrawn further south.

Seoul’s Defense Ministry dismissed the warning as a “repeat of the North’s usual denunciation” of its southern neighbor.

The Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang’s state-run media, said the Korean Peninsula was at “the crossroads of dialogue or confrontation and peace or war.” It accused South Korea of intruding into North Korean waters in the Yellow Sea and of sending anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border.

“In September alone, more than 80 warships of the South Korean navy intruded into the waters of the North side in the sea, while anti-communist right-wing conservative organizations scattered a lot of leaflets and undesirable USBs and pamphlets into areas of the north side (of the border),” the KCNA said in an English-language dispatch.

The report also said the head of the North Korean delegation to the inter-Korean general-level military talks sent a warning to Seoul on Saturday.

“The North side reminds the South side once again that the army and people of the DPRK are compelled to make a physical retaliation against the South side’s ceaseless provocative war moves as already clarified before the world and keeping themselves fully ready for it,” the KCNA said. PRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

The latest warning came only three days after Pyongyang threatened to mete out “merciless punishment” to South Korea for psychological warfare that Pyongyang believes is aimed at toppling its current regime.

The North on Wednesday accused the South of airing anti-North Korean television and radio broadcasts via a frequency currently being used by the North for its own broadcasts.

(From news reports)