North Korea has asked the U.N. Security Council to convene a meeting to discuss joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States, calling the maneuvers "a grave threat" to the communist nation.

Amb. Ja Song-nam, chief of the North's mission to the U.N., made the request in a letter to the president of the Security Council last week, saying the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises are the largest-ever in size and scope and "truly aggressive in their nature."

"The U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises constitute a grave threat to the DPRK as well as international peace and security and deserve urgent consideration by the Security Council," Ja said in the letter, according to a copy released Wednesday.

"Therefore, I request that the issue of the US joint military exercises be placed on the Security Council agenda and that a meeting of the Council be urgently held."

Pyongyang has long denounced such annual drills as a rehearsal for invasion, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that they are purely defensive in nature. In protest of the exercises, the North has carried out a series of missile launches in recent weeks.

This year's exercises, one of the largest ever, took place amid heightened tensions in the wake of the North's nuclear and long-range missile tests, and were aimed in part at warning the communist nation not to undertake provocations.

"These real war-like military maneuvers are also truly aggressive in their nature, characterized by a 'beheading operation' aimed to remove the supreme leadership of the DPRK and 'bring down its social system' pursuant to the U.S.-drafted war scenario," the North's envoy said.

The North has made similar requests to the Security Council to no avail. Ja said the council should accept the request, rather than dealing with the country's human rights situation, which he said has nothing to do with international peace and security. (Yonhap)