North Korea has criticised the arrival of the US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the South for a joint drill as an "extremely reckless" provocation and a rehearsal for war against the communist state.

A US naval strike group led by the nuclear-powered Nimitz arrived off the South's southern port of Busan Saturday for the drill to be staged this week, following joint exercises that infuriated North Korea in recent months.

The 97,000-ton Nimitz, one of the world's largest warships, will participate in joint search-and-rescue operations as well as "sea manoeuvring" around the Korean Peninsula, the South's defence ministry said.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea that handles cross-border affairs called the arrival of the US fleet "a grave military provocation" that would dramatically ratchet up tension.

"The joint naval drill involving the latest weaponry including the nuclear aircraft carrier is a wanton blackmail against us and demonstrates...that their attempt to invade us has reached an extremely reckless level," it said.

"The risk of a nuclear war in the peninsula has risen further due to the madcap nuclear war practice by the US and the South's enemy forces," the committee said in a statement carried by state-run KCNA Saturday night.

The latest joint naval drill between the two allies is expected to be staged off the South's eastern coast from Monday to Tuesday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unnamed Seoul official.

Military tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for months, with the North under the young leader Kim Jong-Un issuing a series of apocalyptic threats over what it sees as intensely provocative US-South joint exercises.

The friction has abated somewhat after the annual ground exercises were wrapped up at the end of April, and a US defence official said North Korea had moved two medium-range missiles off their launch pads.

North Korean troops near the disputed Yellow Sea border have been ordered to strike back if "even a single shell drops" in their territorial waters, the North's army command said in a statement last week.

Any subsequent counterstrike would trigger an escalated military reaction that would see South Korea's border islands engulfed in a "sea of flames", it said.

The tense sea border off the west coast saw deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009. The North shelled one of the islands, Yeonpyeong, in November 2010, killing four South Koreans and sparking brief fears of a full-scale conflict.

Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.

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  • January 1951

    Six months after invading North Korean forces started the Korean War, North Korean leader and founder Kim Il Sung says in a speech that U.S. and South Korean forces were the actual invaders and had prompted his army to retaliate. Kim vows to annihilate the North's enemies. <em>Caption: In this March 7, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 8, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, uses binoculars to look at the South's territory from an observation post at the military unit on Jangjae islet, located in the southernmost part of the southwestern sector of North Korea's border with South Korea. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) </em>

  • January 1952

    Kim Il Sung likens U.S. forces to Nazis and says that the war is turning into a mass grave for U.S. forces. <em>Caption: In this March 7, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 8, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, walks with military personnel as he arrives for a military unit on Mu Islet, located in the southernmost part of the southwestern sector of North Korea's border with South Korea. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS)</em>

  • May 1972

    Kim Il Sung tells Harrison Salisbury and John Lee of The New York Times that because of perceived U.S. hostility, "we are always making preparations for war. We do not conceal this matter." <em>Caption: North Koreans attend a rally in support of a statement given on Tuesday by a spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army vowing to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War as well as boasting of the North's ownership of "lighter and smaller nukes" and its ability to execute "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday, March 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)</em>

  • March 1993

    North Korea declares a "semi-state of war" to protest joint U.S.-South Korean war games that it says threaten its security. Amid a standoff with Washington over its nuclear program, it also threatens to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. <em>Caption: In this Dec. 12, 2012 file photo released by Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launch pad in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. (AP Photo/KCNA, File)</em>

  • 1994

    In an appearance of what will become a well-worn phrase, a North Korean negotiator threatens to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire." Fearing war, South Koreans clear store shelves of instant noodles, water, gas and other necessities. <em>Caption: Female North Korean traffic police officers gather in front of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay their respects in Pyongyang, North Korea on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • September 1996

    North Korea threatens "hundredfold and thousandfold retaliation" against South Korean troops who had captured or killed armed North Korean agents who had used a submarine to sneak into the South. <em>Caption: North Korean soldiers gather along a Pyongyang street during heavy snowfall on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • September 1996

    North Korea threatens "hundredfold and thousandfold retaliation" against South Korean troops who had captured or killed armed North Korean agents who had used a submarine to sneak into the South. <em>Caption: A North Korean soldier smokes a cigarette as snow falls in Pyongyang on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • January 2002

    After President George W. Bush labels North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, Pyongyang calls the remark "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea's Foreign Ministry warns it "will never tolerate the U.S. reckless attempt to stifle the (North) by force of arms but mercilessly wipe out the aggressors." <em>Caption: A North Korean portrait photographer instructs North Korean soldiers to pose for a picture under a mosaic of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at an exhibition in Pyongyang on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 where Kimjongilia flowers, named after Kim Jong Il, were on display. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • January 2010

    North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission warns that the country will initiate a "retaliatory holy war" against South Korea over Seoul's alleged contingency plan to deal with potential unrest in the North. <em>Caption: A North Korean man stands next to a tractor and wagon on the edge of a snow covered field near the village of Ryongsan-ri, south of Pyongyang, North Korea on Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • May 2010

    After a Seoul-led international investigation blames a North Korean torpedo for the sinking of a South Korea warship that killed 46 sailors, Pyongyang issues a denial and warns of a "prompt physical strike." In November 2010, the North attacked a front-line island, killing four South Koreans. <em>Caption: North Koreans cross a railroad bridge over a riverbed south of Mount Myohyang, and north of the capital city of Pyongyang, North Korea, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • November 2011

    A day after South Korea conducts large-scale military drills near the island hit by the North in 2010, the North's Korean People's Army threatens to turn Seoul's presidential palace into a "sea of fire." <em>Caption: In this Feb. 16, 2013 image made from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, waves as he attends a statue unveiling ceremony at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang, North Korea on the anniversary of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's birthday. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video)</em>

  • April 2012

    North Korea holds a massive rally denouncing conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak as a "rat." It says he should be struck with a "retaliatory bolt of lightning" because of his confrontational approach toward Pyongyang. <em>Caption: Rows of North Korean children stand and salute at a sports arena in Pyongyang for a national meeting of the Children's Union on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)</em>

  • June 2012

    North Korea's military warns that troops have aimed artillery at seven South Korean media groups to express outrage over criticism in Seoul of ongoing children's festivals in Pyongyang. It threatens a "merciless sacred war." <em>Caption: South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)</em>

  • October 2012

    An unidentified spokesman at the powerful National Defense Commission warns that the U.S. mainland is within range of its missiles and says Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of North Korea shows the allies are plotting to invade the North. <em>Caption: North Korean soldiers and others gather in front of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay their respects in Pyongyang, North Korea on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)</em>

  • North Korean soldiers lay flowers at the base of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay their respects in Pyongyang, North Korea on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. North Koreans turned out to commemorate what would have been the 71th birthday of Kim Jong Il who died on Dec. 17, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)