Nuclear-armed North Korea on Sunday accused the United States and Israel of engaging in an "extreme war frenzy" over Iran's atomic programme, warning a new war may break out in the Middle East. Iran is among the countries which the North has supplied with banned nuclear and ballistic equipment using "surreptitious" means to avoid international sanctions, a UN report said last year.
Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that Israel could launch a strike on Iran, with President Shimon Peres warning last weekend that an attack was becoming "more and more likely".
"A dangerous situation is now prevailing in the Middle East whereby a new war may break out," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.
It denounced the US and Israel for "openly revealing their scheme for military attack" on Iran.
"The extreme war frenzy shown by the US and Israel is a very dangerous deed that may drive the Mideast region to disasters of new war, in the wake of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the present century," the commentary said.
Tehran has threatened to hit back against any attack or even the threat of military action.
Iran denies its programme is meant to produce nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency however said there were "credible" reasons to doubt its denials.
Both North Korea and Iran are under UN sanctions for their nuclear programmes.
Six-party negotiations on the North's nuclear disarmament have been at a standstill since the last session in December 2008.
The North formally quit the six-party forum in April 2009, a month before staging its second atomic weapons test.
It has since repeatedly said it wants to come back to the negotiations but without preconditions, while Washington and its allies say Pyongyang must first take steps to show its sincerity.
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