SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korean news media on Thursday said the communist nation's military is ready for war with the United States if a dispute over nuclear inspections comes to blows.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that North Korean soldiers and people of all walks of life were "on full alert for war."North Korea typically sends out belligerent rhetoric, especially when it enters high-stake talks with Washington, D.C.
The United States and North Korea are set to resume talks Friday about inspections of an underground North Korean site suspected of being used to produce nuclear weapons.
KCNA broadcasts brimmed with anti-American saber-rattling.
"Our People's Army will blow up the U.S. territory as a whole" if the United States starts a war on the divided Korean Peninsula, Vice Defense Minister Jong Chang Ryol was quoted as saying Thursday.
The general staff of the North Korean military accused Washington, D.C., on Wednesday of pushing the situation in Korea to the "brink of war" by demanding inspections and talks aimed at preventing Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Washington, D.C., demands unconditional inspections of the North's underground project. But North Korea asked Washington, D.C., to pay $300 million for the right to inspect the site.