As the U.S. and South Korea prepare for joint Naval exercises set to begin this weekend in the Sea of Japan, the North Korea Defense Commission has issued a statement promising a “retaliatory sacred war” against both South Korea and the United States.

“The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest—ever nuclear war exercises,” the commission said in a statement published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Just yesterday, a North Korean spokesman warned the joint exercises would result in a “physical response” from Pyongyang.

Despite the threats from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il the nuclear-powered U.S. supercarrier the U.S.S. George Washington docked in South Korea to prepare for the scheduled naval drills code named “Invincible Spirit”. The drills are set to begin Sunday and run through Wednesday.

The AP reports, “8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops, 20 ships and submarines and 200 aircraft. The Nimitz-class USS George Washington, with several thousand sailors and dozens of fighters aboard, was deployed from Japan.

“The North routinely threatens attacks whenever South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion. The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan, but says it has no intention of invading the North.

“Still, the North's latest rhetoric threatening "nuclear deterrence" and "sacred war" carries extra weight following the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. Seoul and Washington say a North Korean torpedo was responsible for the March sinking of the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

“The American and South Korean defense chiefs announced earlier in the week they would stage the military drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its ‘aggressive’ behavior.”

On Friday Secretary of State Hillary Clilnton expressed displeasure with North Korea’s threat of a “physical response” saying the threat was “distressing”. Earlier in the week Clinton said the U.S. would impose new sanctions on North Korea as a penalty for North Korea’s sinking of South Korea’s Navy ship the Cheonan back in March. Clinton also promised the joint naval action between the U.S. and South Korea would take place as scheduled.

"The more desperately the U.S. imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the (North's) nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defense and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be become," the North Korea Defense Commission statement said.