North Korea accused South Korea Tuesday of trying to provoke another war and threatened to turn its neighbour into "a sea of fire" in response to any attack.

A senior military official, echoing threats made in late October, said the "slightest moves" by US and South Korean forces towards a pre-emptive strike would be countered with a "more rapid and powerful advanced pre-emptive strike."

The comments came from Vice-Marshal Kim Il-Chol, the armed forces minister and a member of the communist state's powerful National Defence Commission.

Kim, quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency, said such a counterstrike by the North would employ means "unimaginably more powerful than nuclear weapons."

It would "not merely turn everything into a sea of fire but reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent reunified country on it."

He was speaking at a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of leader Kim Jong-Il's takeover as armed forces' supreme commander.

The language was similar to that in a military statement on October 28, issued in response to the launch by Seoul-based groups of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the heavily fortified border.

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