South Korea is beefing up its military force near the West Sea of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and has frequently intruded into the DPRK's territorial waters, a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea said on Saturday, according to Xinhua.
The provocative action by South Korea has "badly irritated" the DPRK and has made the West Sea area a hair-trigger situation, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) news agency cited the spokesman as saying.
As having declared, the DPRK will take counter measures and "unimaginable merciless punishment" against South Korea's "provocations," the spokesman said.
The DPRK media said South Korea had made a guideline for a war against the DPRK and its warships had "frequently intruded into the DPRK's territorial waters."
The DPRK renounced a truce ending the 1950-53 Korean War after Seoul participated in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) designed to stop the trade of weapons of mass destruction in late March.
The two sides, which have been in dispute over their West Sea border, clashed in 1999 and 2002, causing casualties on both sides.