MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Days before six-power talks on its nuclear programme, North Korea has denounced naval exercises Russian forces are about to begin with three other participants in the conference, Russia's defence minister said on Wednesday.
Itar-Tass news agency said minister Sergei Ivanov told a video conference with Russian navy chiefs that Pyongyang had turned down an offer to send observers to the Far Eastern manoeuvres, saying they would lead to "a sharpening of the atmosphere on the Korean peninsula."
The sharp reaction from North Korea came a week before the start of six-country talks on its nuclear programme which has led to an international stand-off between Pyongyang and the United States.
The participants in the talks, which are scheduled to be held in Beijing for three days from August 27, will be Russia, the United States, Japan, China and the two Koreas.
Russia said its naval vessels would link up with U.S. coastal forces in exercises in the Bering Straits and with Japanese and South Korean forces for allied manoeuvres in the Japan Sea, south of the Russian port of Nakhodka.
Tass said up to 70,000 Russian military and civilian personnel as well as 60 vessels and 35 support ships would take part in the exercises, the main phase of which was due to take place between August 22 and 27.
The Beijing talks follow months of tension that began when Washington announced last October that Pyongyang was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme.
The crisis escalated early this year after North Korea expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarted a mothballed reactor at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang.
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