According to recent reports, increased activity around North Korean missile pads indicated Pyongyang may be readying a new test, with Japanese officials expressing concern in talks with North Korea in Beijing last month.

But the North's ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, accused Washington of floating false rumors "in an attempt to carry into practice its strategy of pre-emptive attack" on the communist country.

"This is nothing but an intentional and deliberate build-up of false rumor to keep the situation unstable on the Korean peninsula," it said.

The official Korean Central News Agency also insisted that the test, production and deployment of missiles are "an issue pertaining to the legitimate right" of North Korea.

"The test, production and deployment of missiles can never pose any threat to others as they are of self-defensive nature," it said, adding US military moves compel Pyongyang to boost its defence capacity.

"The DPRK (North Korea) will increase its military deterrent force in every way, now that the US is becoming desperate in its moves to stifle it by force," the agency said.

Washington has denounced Pyongyang as a leading global proliferator of missiles and missile technology as well as weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea declared a moratorium on missile tests in September 1999 and in May 2001 extended the decision until 2003 and beyond.

But the cash-strapped country has refused to stop missile exports, a major source of hard currency earnings.

North Korea has short-range Scud missiles largely targeting South Korea and intermediate-range Rodong missiles that can fire on targets up to 1,300 kilometres (812 miles) including most areas of Japan.

Pyongyang, at the centre of an international outcry against its nuclear arms ambitions, stunned the world in 1998 by test-launching over Japan a Taepodong-1 missile with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers.

On Monday North Korea warned against US moves to further isolate the Stalinist state over the nuclear issue.

The warning came after US officials last month hinted at bringing North Korea to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if it continued to cold-shoulder talks on the country's nuclear weapons drive.

North Korea failed to show at a fourth round of six-party talks scheduled to open in September in Beijing, saying it was staying away because of the "hostile" US policy towards Pyongyang and reports of secret nuclear experiments in South Korea.

The United States, the two Koreas, Russia, China and Japan met for three inconclusive rounds of talks in Beijing prior to the North Korean boycott.

The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement.

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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