North Korea warns US it will 'respond to fire with fire' saying UN sanctions would be attemp

North Korea has warned it will 'respond to fire with fire' as the war of words with the US continues.

An official for the country's foreign ministry made the alarming statement today, adding that the US will just have to put up with North Korea's military status.

Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department of North Korea's foreign ministry, said possession of nuclear weapons was 'a matter of life and death' for the regime as they are needed to respond to potential attack.

But the secretive state does not plan on having any talks with the US, the spokesman added.

Furthermore, the Choe told a non-proliferation conference in Moscow his country sees any attempt to 'strangle' North Korea via UN sanctions was an attempt to declare war.

"This is a matter of life and death for us," RIA news agency reported him as saying. "The current situation deepens our understanding that we need nuclear weapons to repel a potential attack."

"We will respond to fire with fire."

Meanwhile, Moscow and Washington are continuing a dialogue on North Korea and the future of the international deal on Iran's nuclear program, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said today.

Iran's own nuclear status has become a sore point in recent days with Trump once again slamming the Obama-led deal with the country to reduce proliferation of weapons.

Lavrov urged world powers to get behind a joint Russian-Chinese roadmap for settling the crisis over North Korea's weapons programme.

Speaking at the same conference on non-proliferation in Moscow, Lavrov said that the break-up of a deal on Iran's nuclear programme would send an alarming message about international security mechanisms, and could impact the situation on the Korean peninsula.

The latest inflammatory rhetoric from North Korea comes as Kim Jong-un's country sent a letter to Australia's parliament warning their ally Donald Trump will "totally destroy the whole world".

"If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance," the letter, published by the Sydney Morning Herald, said.