Diplomats from the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul today to discuss policy responses to North Korea's accelerating efforts to expand its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador warned Monday that the situation on the Korean peninsula "has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment".

North Korea's deputy United Nations ambassador has accused the United States of turning the Korean Peninsula into "the world's biggest hotspot" and creating "a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment".