The National Reconciliation Council of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Saturday accused the United States of forcing its southern neighbor to join sanctions over a recent nuke test, and called on South Koreans to resist U.S. intervention.

"The United States is pressurizing South Korea to apply sanctions against the DPRK and inciting confrontation with it," a spokesman for the council said in a statement.

South Korea on Thursday joined the U.S.-led sanctions against its neighbor by preventing the entry of any DPRK personnel suspected of having links to the country's nuclear and other weapons programs.

The United States had been trying to persuade the South Korean government to support the UN sanction, which was passed by the Security Council after the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test on Oct. 9.

Citing its nuclear deterrent as a self-defense instrument, the statement blamed the U.S. intervention as an "intolerable encroachment upon the dignity and sovereignty of the Korean nation."

This U.S. behavior, the statement said, was aimed at driving a wedge between the south and the north, inciting confrontation between fellow countrymen and pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to a phase of war.

Source: Xinhua