SEOUL: North Korea said yesterday 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 its second atom-bomb test.

The announcement, further ratcheting up regional tensions, came amid reports that the secretive North was restarting work to produce more weapons-grade plutonium.

The regime of Kim Jong Il, ignoring global outrage over its nuclear tests, said it could no longer guarantee the safety of United States and South Korean ships off its west coast, and that the Korean peninsula was veering back towards a state of war.

The North's anger was provoked by the South's decision to join a US-led international security initiative, which provides for the stopping of vessels to ensure that they are not carrying weapons of mass destruction, or components to make them.

Meanwhile, diplomats at the United Nations Security Council said they would need time to agree on a new resolution against the North.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the council should "speak out toughly" but not "punish for the sake of
punishment... The problem can be settled only through talks".