Pyongyang views all such drills as rehearsals for invasion and claimed on Friday that the recent drills, called Freedom Shield, were a drill to “take over” North Korea.
KCNA said Pyongyang’s “underwater nuclear attack drone” drills were staged “to alert the enemy to a real nuclear threat”.
North Korea last year declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and Kim recently called for an “exponential” increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.
Friday’s statement from KCNA came nearly a week after Pyongyang tested its largest and most powerful missile, the Hwasong-17 – its second ICBM launch this year.