North Korea warned on Wednesday it would bolster its defenses against the United States and consider restarting "all temporally-suspended activities," an apparent reference to a self-imposed moratorium on testing its nuclear bombs and long-range missiles, Reuters reported, citing the North Korean official news agency KCNA.
According to the report, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened a meeting of the powerful politburo of the ruling Workers' Party on Wednesday to discuss "important policy issues," including countermeasures over "hostile" US policy.
Washington's policy and military threats had "reached a danger line," KCNA said, citing joint US-South Korea military exercises, the deployment of cutting-edge US strategic weapons in the region, and the implementation of independent and UN sanctions.
The politburo ordered a reconsideration of trust-building measures and "promptly examining the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities," while calling for "immediately bolstering more powerful physical means," KCNA said.
The State Department and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move follows a series of ballistic missile tests that North Korea has held in recent weeks. The most recent test came on Monday, when North Korea fired tactical guided missiles.
On January 5, Pyongyang said it had test fired a "hypersonic missile" that successfully hit a target.
Last week, North Korea said it conducted a test-firing of a hypersonic missile.
North Korea regularly launches ballistic missiles and had a series of such tests in late 2021, the most recent of which was in October when it test-fired a new ballistic missile from a submarine.
North Korea restarted its missile tests after denuclearization talks with the United States came to a halt.
Former US President Donald Trump tried to reach an agreement with North Korea while in office. Kim and Trump met in Hanoi in 2019 for a summit that left nuclear talks at a standstill.
The pair had met three times since June 2018 but made little progress towards denuclearization.
The Biden administration reached out to North Korea shortly after taking office, but the country did not respond to those overtures.
In Biden’s first policy speech to Congress, he said nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran posed threats that would be addressed through “diplomacy and stern deterrence”.
Responding to that speech, North Korea dismissed the idea of talks with Washington, saying Biden’s speech was “intolerable” and “a big blunder."