North Korea has condemned the United States for its joint Freedom Edge drills with South Korea and Japan.

The chief of the Information Office of the North's Ministry of National Defense issued a statement through the state-run Korean Central News Agency Saturday, warning that the drills could escalate into an actual war at any time.

The North in the statement urged the U.S. and its followers to immediately stop the hostile acts which it said can drive the military confrontation in the Korean peninsula and its vicinity into a real armed conflict.

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan wrapped up their three-day trilateral Freedom Edge exercise last week mobilizing strategic assets in international waters south of South Korea's southern island of Jeju.