North Korea has threatened to scrap its self-imposed ban on testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons after tensions mounted with America once again.

The dictatorship lashed out at American "military threats" and said the country had reached a "danger line".

Leader Kim Jong-un met with powerful North Korean figureheads to discuss potential countermeasures to American hostility, North Korean state media has reported.

The KCNA news agency said: "The hostile policy and military threats of the United States have reached a danger line that cannot be overlooked any more despite our sincere efforts for maintaining the general tide for the relaxation of tensions".

The policymaking committee are said to have examined whether they should restart "all temporally-suspended activities" and had a rethink of "trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative".

A rethink from the North Korean dictator comes after President Joe Biden's administration announced fresh sanctions on six North Koreans involved in the regime's missile plans.

The six were linked to North Korean weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes.

New sanctions followed a series of missile tests by North Korea, including two tests of what Pyongyang claimed to be a hypersonic missile.

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North Korea has not tested its nuclear weapons or its long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) since 2017, but tests for short-range missiles began in 2019.

The short-range tests began shortly after denuclearisastion talks broke down with the US and Donald Trump's administration at a failed summit.

Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies said the KCNA report was "quite disturbing" as North Korea appeared to be gearing up to "cross the red line" and resume ICBM testing.

Moo-jin added that middle-range missile and then ICBM testing is likely to follow the short-range tests unless the US showed signs of easing sanctions.

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He said: "The North is declaring a tit-for-tat policy ahead of the United Nations Security Council meeting," as early as this week as the US pushes for heavier sanctions following a series of recent North Korean missile launches.

The 80th birthday of Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il, is looming and apparently the ICBMs could feature in the celebrations "as a huge celebratory firecracker," Yang says.

The North Korean despot warned that North Korea would "steadily develop indispensable and prerequisite strategic weapons for national security and later added the country would be "properly coordinated depending on the US future attitude" toward Pyongyang.

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