North Korea said Tuesday it will press ahead with its policy of simultaneously pursuing both nuclear and economic development, despite desperate U.S. attempts to end its nuclear capabilities.

"No matter how the international situation and the relations of neighbors change, (the North) will stick to the military-first policy and the dual-line policy to the very end," the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

Despite the introduction of economic sanctions by the outside world, the North has long pursued the development of nuclear weapons.

The Rodong Sinmun article came days after the United States flatly rejected the North's proposal for a halt to joint Seoul-Washington military exercises this year.

On Friday, the North suggested that it would temporarily halt its nuclear tests if the U.S. suspended its joint war exercises with Seoul. The U.S., however, immediately rejected the offer, labelling it an "implicit threat."

The Rodong Sinmun editorial also mounted criticism on the U.S., saying it did everything it could last year to try to destroy the North's nuclear deterrence and topple the regime.

The sortie of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over the Korean Peninsula and joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises were examples of such attempts, it said.

"(These cases) proved how justified we were in upholding the military-first policy and beefing up our self-defensive military power that is based on war deterrence," the North noted. (Yonhap)