Seoul, Sep 5 (IANS): The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday denounced recent military exercises between the United States and South Korea, saying the joint drills "maximized" military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and vowed the country would build up its defense capabilities to guarantee national security and regional peace, state media said.

In a press statement issued Thursday by the chief of the Public Information Office of the Ministry of National Defence, the DPRK lashed out at last month's Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise. It was the largest-ever military drill between South Korea and the United States, involving more than 200 warplanes and a US Army unit equipped to cope with chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear attacks, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The statement also condemned the "extremely reckless and dangerous" joint landing drill Ssangyong, which started on August 26, for "presupposing an open invasion upon the DPRK territory," KCNA said.

"The accumulation of such threatening actions on the Korean Peninsula will only spark off tensions and drive the security environment in the region into an irreversibly catastrophic situation," the statement warned.

The DPRK will build up its defense capabilities to "guarantee the security of the state and the peace in the region by dint of strength and action," it added, Xinhua news agency reported.