On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, Chief of the General Staff of North Korean army, Kim Yong-Chun, said the North had built up strong military deterrence despite economic constraints.

Reporting to a national meeting of government, party and military leaders, Kim said the "arrogant and outrageous moves of the US imperialists" to "stifle" North Korea by force were being carried to extremes.

"He declared that the army and the people of the DPRK (North Korea) will promptly beat back any 'precision strike,' 'surgical operation-style strike' and 'preemptive nuclear attack' with the powerful war deterrent force."

The army and North Korean people have built up their deterrent force through "all hardships, tightening their belts," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

"If the US belligerent group and its followers dare unleash a war in defiance of our warnings, they will not be able to avoid the merciless crushing blow... and they will suffer a miserable defeat dwarfing that they met in the past Korean war," he said.

North Korea celebrates the armistice as victory in "the Fatherland Liberation War".

The US-led UN Command plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the truce with a ceremony at the border truce village of Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed 50 years ago on Sunday.

About 2,500 representatives including 900 veterans from the 16 countries of the US-led coalition will take part in the ceremony.

US casualties from the three-year war included 33,651 deaths and 291,000 wounded.

Some 360,000 South Korean soldiers were also killed or wounded and another 15,000 soldiers from other UN countries killed or wounded.

Roughly a half-million North Korean and Chinese troops are estimated to have died in the war from 1950-53, and another million wounded.

Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of North Korea's ruling Korean Workers Party, attacked the United States for staging the commemorative event at Panmunjom.

"The US seeks... to permanently keep its aggression troops in South Korea ... This only proves that it is going to make the anniversary another occasion for the aggression on Korea," the daily said editorially.

South Korean officials have said stepped-up efforts to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive could result in talks as early as next month.

The United States has been pushing for expanded multilateral talks to include Japan and South Korea while Pyongyang maintains that the nuclear crisis is a bilateral matter between itself and Washington.

The crisis flared last October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 bilateral accord, and suspended fuel deliveries to the energy-starved state.

SPACE.WIRE