North Korea said Friday that it will sever its emergency hot line with Seoul and nullify non-aggression agreements between the two countries, amid escalating tensions over the North's nuclear test last month.

"The DPRK abrogates all agreements on nonaggressions reached between the North and the South," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), a propaganda organ against the South, said in an English statement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). "The DPRK will close the Panmunjom liaison channel between the North and the South."

The DPRK is short for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Referring to the decision to discontinue the hot-line link, it said, "This channel can no longer perform its mission due to the prevailing grave situation," adding, "It will immediately cut off the North-South hot line."

The hot line installed in the truce village separating the two countries had been suspended for nearly 10 months from 2008-09 due to rising tensions over human rights issues in the North.

The latest statement came hours after the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution to punish the communist country for its internationally condemned underground nuclear test on Feb. 12.

It also came after the country's repeated threats to wage a nuclear war against the US and the South in reaction to what the country said were the two allies' on-going joint war exercises to invade the communist country as well as the UN's punitive moves, which the North said were led by Seoul and Washington.

"The frantic Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises being staged by the South Korean warmongers together with the US in the land, air and seas of South Korea...are open acts of aggression against the DPRK and a vivid expression of wanton violation of all the agreements on nonaggression reached between the North and the South," the statement said.

The two-month field training exercise Foal Eagle kicked off last week and computer-simulated drills known as Key Resolve will be held from March 11-21. The South has said the joint war drills are only defensive in nature.

Accusing the South and the US of escalating tensions with the North and igniting a war against the country, the statement said, "The frozen North-South relations have gone beyond such the danger line that they are no longer repairable and an extremely dangerous situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula, where a nuclear war may break out right now.

"The DPRK officially declares that from the moment the Korean Armistice Agreement is made totally invalid on March 11 all the agreements (on non-aggression) will be completely nullified," referring to the truce pact that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war because no peace agreement was signed.

READ FULL SOURCE ARTICLE: 03/08/2013