North Korea has asked South Korea and the United States to scrap this year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, threatening that a strong measure will follow if they push ahead with the annual joint military exercise.

The Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said Sunday in a commentary that the exercise is not only a blatant challenge to the North’s efforts to settle peace on the Korean Peninsula, but also a grave military provocation.

The paper claimed that the “tailored deterrence strategy,” which will be applied in the joint exercise, is effectively an operational plan to invade the North and a declaration of nuclear war.

The paper said that the application of the tailored deterrence strategy implies that the U.S. could launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the North by surprise, adding that a nuclear war could break out on the peninsula at any time.

The newspaper added that the military exercise, if conducted as planned, will clearly send the level of inter-Korean tensions to a new high and the U.S. will not be safe if a war breaks out on the peninsula.

It also said that it would be a double standard if the UN Security Council (UNSC) discusses the North’s missile launches while overlooking the joint military drill.