North Korea has strongly condemned the plan by South Korea and the United States to hold their largest-ever joint live-fire drills next week as a "war exercise" against Pyongyang.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) said on Friday that conducting the so-called joint firepower annihilation drills set for May 25 to June 15 at a training field in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province against a “nuclear power” is absurd.

The KCNA said that the dangerous war exercises planned for about 20 days will occur in an area just a few kilometers from North Korea.

The North then warned that the U.S. and its puppet warmongers are bound to face a reciprocal response for their frenetic nuclear war racket.

The planned drills are expected to involve a diverse range of advanced weapons systems, including F-35A stealth fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, K2 tanks and Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers as the alliance observes its 70th anniversary this year.