North Korea announced Wednesday the disbanding of a joint US-North Korea team excavating the remains of American soldiers in North Korea.

The North's official Korea Central News Agency cited the country's People's Army spokesman at the truce village of Panmunjom as saying that the joint excavation for Korean War MIAs could be no longer conducted due to Washington's decision last month to suspend the project.

The military spokesman blasted the U.S. move as being aimed at crushing his country, and accused Washington of moving ever closer to launching a preemptive strike on the North.

The spokesman also noted that the suspension coincided with the U.S. deployment of stealth fighters to South Korea and the approaching completion of Washington's 13 billion-dollar military buildup plan.

The Pentagon called off the joint excavation last week, accusing Pyongyang of creating an atmosphere that threatened the safety of American workers. It did not specify the causes of the abrupt move or what steps the North needed to take to resume the searches.

Some two hundred sets of remains of U.S. soldiers have been discovered since the two countries began the joint efforts in 1996. Over eight-thousand-100 American troops still remain missing from the Korean War.