North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun has denounced South Korea for its military drills in the Yellow Sea that ended on Monday.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the Rodong Sinmun as saying that Pyongyang would stage a “retaliatory sacred war” using its nuclear deterrent.

The North fired artillery shells into waters near the border with South Korea in the Yellow Sea on Monday, immediately after the South’s drills ended.

According to the news agency, the Rodong Sinmun ran an editorial which said the exercises were not for defense but were part of a provocation to spark a South Korean invasion of the North.

The spokesman for the North Korean National Defense Commission threatened on July 24th to launch a “retaliatory sacred war” based on nuclear deterrence in protest of the joint South Korea-U.S. military drill.