Pyongyang, March 3 (IANS): North Korea on Tuesday blasted the large-scale US-South Korea military exercises, saying the "golden opportunity" for improvement in inter-Korean relations has gone.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said South Korean authorities, in collision with the US, were "pushing the situation on the peninsula to the brink of a war", Xinhua reported.

As Seoul blatantly challenges Pyongyang by kicking off the drills with the US, the opportunity of North-South dialogue and improvement of relations has already passed and "there will only be a final standoff by force", the official KCNA news agency quoted the committee as saying in a statement.

As long as the US and South Korean forces "are allowed to continue anti-DPRK (North Korea) war drills, the Korean nation can neither lead a peaceful life nor evade the nuclear holocaust", warned the statement.

The committee also said the international community should oppose anti-North Korea drills as these jeopardise regional peace and stability and spur tensions in northeast Asia.

North Korea fired two short-range missiles into its eastern waters on Monday when South Korea and the US kicked off their joint annual war games "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle."

On the same day, an unnamed spokesman for the North Korea's General Staff of the Korean People's Army issued a statement, warning of "toughest measures" to retaliate against the military exercises.

The retaliatory measures will include "all the ground, sea, underwater, air and cyber striking means" and the country's armed forces "are fully ready" to strike their designated targets, according to the statement.

South Korea and the US claim the drills are routine ones of defensive nature to ensure defence readiness of the combined forces.

But North Korea said these were simply "crafty sophism to conceal their reckless preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK".