The North Korean Foreign Ministry has denied foreign media reports that say some 130 North Korean general-rank military officers have recently defected to China.

The state-run Korea Central News Agency cited the ministry's spokesman as saying that not one officer in Pyongyang had illegally crossed the border, much less over a hundred.

The spokesman was also quoted as expressing displeasure over the foreign media's use of the word 'defection,' allowing that some North Koreans may have crossed over to China due to economic difficulties at home.

The U.S.-based International Herald Tribune newspaper recently reported the defection of over a hundred North Korean military officers to China, adding that some of them had since joined the Chinese army.