South Korea's foreign ministry has expressed regret after North Korea blamed Seoul and Washington for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Assessing North Korea's plenary meeting of the eighth Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, a foreign ministry official on Monday responded to the North’s vow to develop nuclear weapons in response to the "changed security situation” caused by the U.S. and South Korea.

The official said that the North should get off the wrong path and urged it to return to the path of denuclearization.

Addressing the regime’s designation of its space development project as an "urgent task,” the official said that the urgent task should be the improvement of living conditions of the people suffering from severe economic difficulties.