North Korea guarded against the United States seeking an alternative sanctions monitoring mechanism against the regime on Thursday, as the mandate for a monitoring panel under the United Nations Security Council(UNSC) is set to end later this month.

Kim Un-chol, vice minister for U.S. affairs at the North's foreign ministry, said in a statement through the state-run Korean Central News Agency(KNCA) that should the U.S. introduce a new version of sanctions, the regime “will take a new opportunity necessary for its upward adjustment of force that the U.S. is most afraid of.”

The vice minister said Pyongyang has become accustomed to U.S. sanctions and is equipped with the capacity and power to counter Washington's harsh sanctions, before pledging to thoroughly defend its sovereign right and security interests.

The North Korean official also threatened to take "powerful practical actions" to build up its military strength, saying past U.S.-led UN sanctions have triggered the North to conduct a more powerful nuclear test.

An official at Seoul's unification ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs, in response, said the latest statement shows that Pyongyang is dissatisfied and anxious about the international community's push for a new mechanism to monitor sanctions.