North Korea bans flights, sailing off coasts, indicating possible drills.

North Korea bans flights, sailing off coasts, indicating possible drills.(Yahoo).SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has set no-fly and no-sail zones off its east and west coasts that indicates it will conduct major military drills, but test firing of short-to-medium-range missiles cannot be ruled out, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday.

"The North's military ... is preparing large-scale combined military exercises so it may have blocked off the areas for nautical firing or fighter jet firing exercises," Yonhap quoted a South Korean government source as saying."But the firing of missiles cannot be ruled out."

One of North Korea's top generals, in a rare appearance on state television on Tuesday, said Pyongyang had torn up its armistice deal with Washington and threatened military action against the U.S. and South Korea if military drills between the two countries continued. The military exercises began on March 1.

North Korea’s threat to scrap the cease-fire next Monday still matters because the armistice is the key document blocking hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, which technically has remained in a state of war for six decades.

If North Korea follows through on its threat to nullify the document that set up the heavily armed buffer zone between the rival Koreas, it could drive badly frayed relations even lower. The threat comes as diplomats at the U.N. negotiate sanctions aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test and as allies Washington and Seoul plan massive war games set to start Monday. Here’s a look at what the North’s threat could mean for the Korean Peninsula’s fragile peace.Read the full story here, more here.