More than 120,000 people participated in mass rallies in the North Korean capital Pyongyang to denounce what they claim is a "war provocation of aggression" by the United States on the 73rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, the North's state media said Monday.

The Sunday rallies were attended by workers and youth, as well as secretaries of the North's ruling Workers' Party of Korea Ri Il-hwan and Pak Thae-song, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, when tank-led North Korean troops invaded South Korea. The United States and 20 other allied countries fought on the side of South Korea under the UN flag.

The KCNA said participants blamed the US for the war and noted that there would have been "no such deep-rooted enmity as June 25 and the land of the motherland would not have been stained with innocent blood" should the North have had strong power.

In what appeared to be an attempt to justify the regime's nuclear and missile program, the KCNA said that the "Korean people have firmly grasped the strongest absolute weapon to punish the US imperialists and the war deterrence for self-defence which no enemy dare provoke."

The participants, who held marches and shouted anti-US slogans, also warned of taking revenge and giving "merciless punishment" to the US, saying it is their "duty" to settle accounts with the US imperialists, the KCNA said. (Yonhap)