North Korea says the US rejection of bilateral talks to solve a deepening nuclear crisis is illogical and aimed to thwart Pyongyang's efforts to improve its economy and communist system.
North Korea wants a non-aggression pact with the United States, while Washington favours multilateral talks to press Pyongyang to shut down its suspected nuclear weapons programme.
War warnings and assertions the United States was poised to attack the North have been daily fare in Pyongyang's official media since the crisis flared up nearly five months ago. North Korea threatened on Tuesday to pull out of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War if sanctions were imposed on it.
Washington dismissed that as "strident rhetoric" but North Korea hit back with its own dig at the United States.
"The US is insisting on its strange assertion that it cannot respond to the DPRK-U.S. talks as they mean a sort of reward for the DPRK despite the unanimous world public opinion that DPRK-US direct talks should take place to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying in a statement.
"This is an illogical far-fetched assertion," the ministry added. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The statement, which KCNA published on Wednesday, said Washington was desperately trying to hamstring the North's efforts to improve its communist system.
A second KCNA report said the US announcement this week of major annual US-South Korean military drills to be held in March and April "clearly prove that the US reckless plan for a nuclear war has entered the phase of practical implementation".