North Korea has threatened to cancel a reunion for families separated by the Korean War, after "reckless" remarks by South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and human rights record.

Scrapping the October 20-26 event would effectively tear up an agreement the two Koreas reached in August to de-escalate tensions that had pushed them to the brink of armed conflict.

A three-meter barbed wire fence and the winding Tumen River are all that separate Nanping in China from North Korea, and after a spate of murders - allegedly by frontier-crossing intruders - frightened villagers are increasingly keen to leave, fearing neither the water nor the barrier are enough to protect them.

Over the past year at least 10 people have been killed by North Koreans -- mostly soldiers -- attempting robberies in the area, according to Chinese officials and state-controlled media reports.

Recent satellite images suggest that speculation North Korea will launch a satellite rocket on or before a key political anniversary next month is probably unfounded, U.S. experts said Friday.

And while analysis of separate images showed new activity at the North's nuclear test site, the same experts said there was no indication it was linked to preparations for an actual test.

South Korea and the United States on Thursday warned Pyongyang against a potential missile test that they said would be a violation of U.N. resolutions as the two countries wrapped up annual high-level defense talks.

There has been widespread speculation that North Korea is planning a satellite rocket launch to mark the 70th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party on October 10.

North Korea on Thursday offered its verdict on the migrant emergency facing Europe, blaming the "evil empire" United States for triggering the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

In a lengthy screed denouncing "intolerable" criticism of Pyongyang's human rights record, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman argued that Washington should be the real focus of censure.

Senior South Korean and U.S. defense officials met in Seoul on Wednesday for talks focused on responding to the possibility of an imminent North Korean rocket launch and later nuclear test.

The two-day talks follow statements earlier this month by the respective heads of the North's space and atomic energy agencies that fueled concerns over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

North Korea's use of a lottery system to allow a fraction of the families separated by the Korean War to meet is "extremely cruel," a top rights expert said Monday.

North and South Korea agreed earlier this month to hold a weekend reunion in October for separated families -- only the second to be held in five years -- with 100 people to be selected by each side to take part.

North Korea Tuesday confirmed the restarting of a nuclear reactor seen as its main source of weapons-grade plutonium, raising the second red flag in 24 hours over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The confirmation, by the head of the North's Atomic Energy Institute (AEI), came hard on the heels of suggestions by the chief of the national space agency of a possible satellite rocket launch next month.

South Korea warned North Korea on Tuesday against a possible long-range rocket launch, saying it would be deemed a ballistic missile test and a "serious" provocation violating U.N. resolutions.

The warning came after the head of North Korea's space program suggested that Pyongyang was considering a satellite launch to mark the 70th anniversary next month of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).

North Korea hinted Monday at a possible satellite launch, fueling speculation that it might attempt to fire a long-range rocket to coincide with a key political anniversary next month.

Any such launch would invite fresh international sanctions and jeopardize a reunion being organized with South Korea of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War.