PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) demanded on Wednesday that the United States and South Korea cancel their annual joint military drills due to begin next month.

The announcement of the drills is "little short of the declaration of a total nuclear stand-off," a spokesman of the DPRK's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea was quoted as saying in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

"We sternly warn" the United States and South Korea "to stop the dangerous military exercises which may push the situation on the peninsula and the north-south ties to a catastrophe," the statement said, adding that DPRK-South Korea ties suffered greatly from those war games.

South Korea and the United States plan to carry out the computer-simulated "Key Resolve" drill and the "Foal Eagle" field training exercises from late February to April.

Earlier in the month, the DPRK turned down South Korean President Park Geun-hye's proposal for a reunion of separated families from the two sides around the Lunar New Year, which falls on late January, saying the environment would not be right due to South Korea's military exercises.