Ongoing U.S.-ROK military drills and the trilateral summit at Camp David have made “thermo-nuclear war” on the Korean Peninsula “more than likely,” North Korea warned Tuesday, threatening to “punish the hostile forces.”

The commentary in DPRK state media came a day after Seoul and Washington kicked off large-scale summertime exercises called Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS), with South Korea publicizing that it carried out air force training on intercepting North Korean planes.

“A thermo-nulear war, the first ever in history, is more than likely on the Korean peninsula,” the Korean Central News Agency stated at the beginning of the unsigned commentary.