North Korea lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday for planning to visit South Korea this week, calling it a dangerous trip.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry claimed the two-day trip that will begin on Friday has been planned to “escalate confrontation and bring dark clouds of a nuclear arms race” to the region.

“It is the policy stand of (North Korea) to redouble the efforts to bolster up justifiable deterrence for self-defense in every way to resolutely counter the U.S. hostile action,” the ministry said in an English-language statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

It also said the Obama administration would be “well-advised to coolly examine its hostile policy toward” North Korea.

North Korea has frequently accused the U.S. of having a hostile policy toward Pyongyang and plotting with South Korea to invade the North, a charge denied by Washington.

The White House said last week that Obama’s two main goals for his trip are to assure Washington’s security commitment and promote bilateral economic ties.

Obama’s trip comes amid lingering tensions over Pyongyang’s recent threat to carry out a “new form” of a nuclear test. North Korea made the threat in anger over the United Nations condemnation of its ballistic missile launches into the sea off its east coast.

North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, drawing international condemnation and U.N. sanctions. (Yonhap)