North Korea has lashed out at South Korea and the United States for the meeting between their joint chiefs of staff regarding the North’s recent artillery shelling on a border island of the South in the Yellow Sea.

“The Korean Peninsula has been escalated into the situation of full-scale war due to provocative scheme by the United States and pro-war fanatics of the South,” the (North) Korean Central News Agency quoted Saturday the spokesman of the (North) Korea’s National People’s Council for Protection of Peace, a propaganda mouthpiece of the North against the South, as saying in a statement. “Our military and all the citizens are ready to deal with all, whether it is limited or full-scale war.”

North Korea claimed that it has regarded the meeting of the joint chiefs of staff between the two allies as the declaration of war meaning that they actually intended to break out a total war through the expansion of the skirmishes in a dangerous conspiracy of attacking the North militarily.

Washington accepted the guidelines on Seoul’s invocation of self-defense right, while the two allies agreed to overhaul measures against limited provocations by the North at the meeting in Seoul, Dec. 8.

“It is crystal-clear that the provocations will expand to the full-scale war not confined to limited war if the South fires at us with aircraft, war ships and missiles and the U.S. intervene in war with its up-to-date weapons,” said the statement.

“It will not remain as limited to the Korean Peninsula if the all-out war breaks out on this soil,” the statement said. “We will punish provocative forces and invaders cruelly and protect the dignity and security of the people gloriously.”