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Seoul. North Korea said on Wednesday that it was abandoning the truce that ended the Korean war and warned it could launch a military attack on the South, two days after testing an atomic bomb for the second time.

The announcement came amid reports that the secretive North, which outraged the international community with its bomb test on Monday, was restarting work to produce more weapons-grade plutonium.

Defying global condemnation, the regime of Kim Jong-il said that it could no longer guarantee the safety of US and South Korean ships off its west coast and that the Korean peninsula was veering back toward a state of war.

The North’s anger was provoked by the South’s decision to join a US-led international security initiative, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

“Those who have provoked us will face unimaginable merciless punishment,” said a military statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, blaming Washington and Seoul for the latest turn of events.

The PSI, which now groups 95 nations, provides for the stopping of vessels to ensure they are not carrying weapons of mass destruction or the components to make them. The South announced it was joining on Tuesday.

“Any tiny hostile acts against our republic, including the stopping and searching of our peaceful vessels,” North Korea said, “will face an immediate and strong military strike in response.”

It said its military would “no longer be bound” by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war because Washington had drawn its “puppet” — referring to Seoul — into the PSI.

With no binding cease-fire, it said, “the Korean peninsula will go back to a state of war.” It also said the North “will not guarantee the legal status” of five South Korean islands near the disputed inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea, which was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

Analysts played down the likelihood of a full-scale conflict between North and South Korea but said clashes near the sea border were possible.

The South Korean Defense Ministry said no reinforcements were being sent to the region. “The military is maintaining its defense posture as strongly as usual,” a spokesman said.

The North has taken a harder line with the international community in recent months — firing a long-range rocket in April, launching five short-range missiles on Monday and Tuesday and conducting its second nuclear test on Monday.

Almost six years of six-nation talks have failed to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for energy aid, diplomatic benefits and security guarantees.

The international community, including the North’s main ally, China, strongly condemned its latest nuclear test. But diplomats at the UN Security Council said they would need time to agree on a new resolution against the North.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the council should “speak out toughly” but that the aim should be to get the North back to the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. “We should not look to punish for the sake of punishment only,” he said. “The problem can only be settled through talks.”

The North’s official cabinet newspaper, Minju Joson, said it was “ludicrous” for the United States to think that it can defeat Pyongyang with sanctions.

Agence France-Presse