North Korean People’s Army official: "We will settle accounts with ‘arch criminals’ in the U.S. ‘with arms only’."

North Korean People’s Army official: "We will settle accounts with ‘arch criminals’ in the U.S. ‘with arms only’."(NP).SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean state media said Monday that Pyongyang had carried through with a threat to cancel the 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War.

Meanwhile, officials with the Korean People’s Army branded the United States an “arch criminal” and said they would “finally settle accounts with those who infringe upon [North Korea's] independent dignity.”“It is the final conclusion and will of the DPRK to settle accounts with the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean nation, with arms only,” officials told rallies in North Phyongan and South Hwanghae, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

Enraged over the South’s joint military drills with the U.S. and recent UN sanctions, Pyongyang has piled threat on top of threat, including vows to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. Seoul has responded with tough talk of its own and has placed its troops on high alert.

The North Korean government made no formal announcement Monday on its repeated threats to scrap the armistice, but the country’s main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the armistice was nullified Monday as Pyongyang had earlier announced it would.

The North followed through on another promise Monday, shutting down a Red Cross hotline that the North and South used for general communication and to discuss aid shipments and separated families’ reunions.

The 11-day military drills that started Monday involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 American troops. Those coincide with two months of separate U.S.-South Korean field exercises that began March 1.

South Korean and U.S. officials have been closely monitoring Pyongyang’s actions and parsing its recent rhetoric, which has been more warlike than usual.

One analyst said Kaesong’s continued operations show that North Korea’s cutting of the Red Cross communication channel was symbolic. More than 840 South Koreans were set to cross the border Monday to Kaesong, which provides a badly-needed flow of hard currency to a country where many face food shortages, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

“If South Koreans don’t go to work at Kaesong, North Korea will suffer” financially, said analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. “If North Korea really intends to start a war with South Korea, it could have taken South Koreans at Kaesong hostage.”

Under newly inaugurated President Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s Defence Ministry, which often brushes off North Korean threats, has looked to send a message of strength in response to the latest comments from Pyongyang.

The ministry has warned that the North’s government would “evaporate from the face of the Earth” if it ever used a nuclear weapon. The White House also said the U.S. is fully capable of defending itself against a North Korean ballistic attack.Read the full story here.