GENEVA: North Korea faced a chorus of condemnation on Tuesday (March 7) for its latest ballistic missile tests but declared that ongoing joint United States-South Korea military exercises were aimed at conducting a "pre-emptive nuclear attack" against Pyongyang.

Ju Yong Choi, a North Korean diplomat, told the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that the annual drills were "a major cause of escalation of tension that might turn into actual war" on the divided Korean peninsula.