The communist country's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said North Korea, which has never joined the Missile Technology Control Regime, is bound by no legal restrictions concerning the export of missiles or the transfer of missile technology.

"It is our sovereign right to produce, deploy or export missiles to other countries," KCNA said in a report carried by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

It said North Korea's missile development programme was defensive in its nature and "poses no threats to any country that is not threatening us."

The statement came after the United States for the first time explicitly accused Pakistan and North Korea of missile-related trade Wednesday.

North Korea responded by accusing the United States of "state terrorism" for bombing cities and killing civilians in its war against Iraq.

"The United States is like a thief who takes up a stick to beat its victim. It is the main culprit of the state terrorism which is turning cities and villages into ashes and massacring civilians in Iraq, and now it is talking about sanctions against us," it said.

A State Department statement said Wednesday North Korea had exported missile technology to Pakistan's key nuclear research firm A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL).

The export prompted the United States to slap trade sanctions on KRL and the North Korean missile marketing entity Changgwang Sinyong Corporation on March 24, spokesman Philip Reeker said in the statement.

North Korean missiles have been regarded as a major security threat to Japan after the Stalinist state sent shockwaves around the region by launching a suspected Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan's main island of Honshu and into the Pacific in 1998.

In December last year, a US navy ship seized 15 North Korean-made Scud missiles on a Yemen-bound North Korean freighter.

The cargo ship and the shipment were later released but the incident prompted the North to take a step further in ratcheting up tensions over its nuclear stand-off with the United States.

Pyongyang has said it could become the next US target after the Iraq war.

"The nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is getting worse with every passing day," Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling communist party newspaper said. "It is open secret that the DPRK is the next target of US attack after the Iraqi war."

Rodong denounced South Korea's planned dispatch of troops to help the US war effort in Iraq as an "unpardonable criminal act" against North Korea.

The parliament of South Korea, a US ally, voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for a government motion to send 700 non-combat troops to Iraq after President Roh Moo-Hyun's repeated requests for endorsement.

SPACE.WIRE