US plans to attack, says North Korea

NORTH KOREA has accused the United States and South Korea of planning a massive joint military attack against it, even as a Seoul envoy in Pyongyang pushed ahead with diplomatic efforts to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis.

The North also said it was prepared to answer the threat of an attack with "the unlimited use of means," in a particularly forceful dispatch from its official news agency KCNA.

The envoy of outgoing South Korean President Kim Dae-jung met with the second-highest leader of the isolated communist nation. It was a likely prelude to meeting with leader Kim Jong Il, considered the only one who can make a meaningful decision on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.