Seoul  - North Korea on Wednesday renewed its threats of military strikes against the United States and its allies in case the Stalinist state felt provoked.

"If the US and its followers infringe upon our republic's sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a 100- or 1,000-fold retaliation with merciless military strikes," a commentary in the state-run Minju Choson newspaper said.

The latest posturing followed a UN Security Council decision to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang following North Korea's nuclear test on May 25.

The paper accused US President Barack Obama of hypocrisy for calling for a world free of nuclear weapons while at the same time frantically attempting to develop nuclear arms.

"The nuclear programme is not the monopoly of the US," the paper said.

North Korea's warnings came one day after Obama and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung Bak at a meeting in Washington reaffirmed their tough stance on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

Obama called on the international community to act decisively to to implement the latest Security Council sanctions against North Korea. The UN body on Friday unanimously passed a new round of tougher sanctions against the communist state.(dpa)