SEOUL ��" North Korea said on Sunday it will bolster its atomic arsenal and was no longer bound by the cease fire that ended the Korean War due to joint US-South Korean military drills, which start today. The comments come just days after a senior diplomat from China, the destitute North's biggest benefactor, said Beijing wants stalled international talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear arms activities to restart before July. The warning from the North, typical of the heated rhetoric it issues to coincide with the drills, will not likely cause any increased risk to the troubled peninsula, analysts said. North Korea routinely denounces the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war even though they have been held for decades without major incident. "The process for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will naturally come to a standstill," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted a senior military official as saying. "It is illogical to sit face to face with the dialogue partner, who brings dark clouds of a nuclear war while leveling its gun at the other party, and discuss 'peace' and 'cooperation' with him," the official was quoted as saying.
