North Korea is denouncing upcoming joint military drills by US and South Korean forces and warning it could respond with stronger deterrence measures, according to a Foreign Ministry statement published Friday. The 11-day exercises due to begin on Monday are a regular fixture of the summer calendar, designed to prepare the United States and South Korea to defend against the nuclear-armed North.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Pyongyang calls them rehearsals for an invasion and earlier this week fired a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan, signalling its opposition to the exercises. “It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent,” a spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday. According to the text, carried by the state news agency KCNA on Friday, the official added that Pyongyang “will not tolerate the grave confrontational situation which is being created by the enemy states but more clearly express its stance on the enemies to cope with any threats and challenges through the responsible and decisive exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense.” The statement described the drills as aiming “to complete preparations for the substantial military confrontation with the DPRK,” referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “This is tantamount to an admission that the exercises, which the US and the ROK (Republic of Korea) describe as ‘annual’ and ‘defensive’ ones, are a rehearsal for an aggressive war.”