North Korea Monday slammed South Korean President Park Geun-Hye for "hurting its dignity" with her call for denuclearization and said its atomic weapons could never be a bargaining chip.

"Park Geun-Hye let loose a whole string of provocative remarks seriously hurting the dignity and social system in the DPRK (North Korea) while visiting China," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement through state media.

North Korea has deployed new rocket launchers along its border capable of hitting targets beyond Seoul, a report said Sunday.

Artillery units from the North were spotted replacing older multiple rocket stations with an upgraded version of the 240mm guns, Yonhap news agency said.

Russia will meet a delegation from North Korea next week to discuss a possible resumption of talks about ending Pyongyang's nuclear program, the foreign ministry said according to a Russian news agency.

A top North Korean envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-Gwan, will travel to Moscow on Thursday for "consultations on the entire set of issues surrounding the North Korean nuclear program," the foreign ministry was quoted as stating by the RIA Novosti news agency.

South Korean police on Saturday stopped a planned launch of anti-Pyongyang leaflets following a threat of violent retaliation by the North.

A group of defectors from North Korea and U.S. human rights activists had said they would use gas-filled balloons to drop 200,000 leaflets critical of Pyongyang over the tense border.

North Korea's army chief of staff said Friday in Havana his country is "in the same trench" as Cuba, local television reported.

General Kyok Sik Kim, who arrived a day earlier in the Americas' only Communist-run nation, said he was there "to find colleagues in the same trench: the Cuban comrades."

Japan's foreign minister will hold face-to-face talks with his South Korean opposite number at a regional gathering next week, a report said Friday, the first ministerial meeting between the two countries since new governments came to power.

Fumio Kishida is also hoping for a chance to meet informally with China's foreign minister on the sidelines of the annual diplomatic and security meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Brunei, Kyodo News reported.

China and South Korea agreed to push for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday at a summit with South Korea's leader focused on North Korea's nuclear program.

"We on both sides consistently agree to continue to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and firmly protect peace and stability on the peninsula," Xi said at a joint appearance with the South's Park Geun-Hye.

North Korea on Sunday blamed the United States for escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and called for "real actions" if Washington wants peace.

"The U.S. can never cover up its true colors as the chief culprit escalating the tensions on the peninsula in a planned and deliberate way," the North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary.

A top North Korean envoy said Friday that U.S. hostility could lead to war at any time, but reaffirmed a government offer of talks with Washington that could include the nuclear weapons issue.

At a rare but typically combative news conference, the isolated state's U.N. ambassador Sin Son-Ho accused the United States of driving up tensions and appealed for an end to U.N. and U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that talks regarding the Korean peninsula should be first and foremost about ending North Korea's nuclear program.

Ban said he had noted Pyongyang's calls for dialogue, but added that "any meaningful dialogue should be firmly anchored in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula", in comments released by the U.N. during a trip to China.