North Korea is ready to halt nuclear tests if the United States suspends military exercises with South Korea, Pyongyang's Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong was quoted as saying in a rare interview Saturday.

Ri made the remark in an interview with The Associated Press while on a visit to New York for U.N. meetings, renewing the North's long-running claims that the country was compelled to develop nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls U.S. nuclear threats and hostile policy toward Pyongyang.

"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," Ri said, according to AP.

The communist nation made the same proposal in the past, but the U.S. has rejected it as an "implicit threat," stressing that the North is banned from nuclear tests under U.N. resolutions and that joint military exercises with South Korea are purely defensive.

The latest offer came amid growing concern that the North could carry out yet another nuclear test soon, just a few months after its fourth nuclear blast in January, in the run-up to next month's Workers' Party Congress.

Pyongyang has long claimed that annual military drills between South Korea and the U.S. are a rehearsal for invading the North, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that the maneuvers are defensive in nature.

Ri also told AP that "new opportunities" could come for the two countries if the exercises are suspended, but otherwise, the situation will "lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well."

Ri also said that sanctions against the North won't work.

"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken," he was quoted as saying.

The foreign minister said that it's good to see that Cuba and Iran have improved relations with the U.S., but such cases are totally different from relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

The AP, meanwhile, said that the North Korean official will likely be restricted in his travels while in the United States.  

Related to calls by the North Korean official to halt joint South Korea-U.S. exercises, local Pyongyang watchers here said the communist country is trying to create a pretext for detonating another nuclear device.

Kim Yeoul-soo, an international relations professor at Sungshin Women's University in Seoul, said Ri's comments were totally out of place at the climate change gathering.

"The remarks can be interpreted as the North trying to justify its nuclear test in the face of tough international sanctions," the scholar said.

This view was echoed by Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korean studies professor at Dongguk University. He said the North is clearly aware that it is difficult to halt the joint annual exercises.

"The fact that they brought the matter up, knowing full well such calls will not be reflected is a ploy to shift blame for its nuclear weapons test to South Korea and the United States," he said.

Others also pointed out that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un already made it clear when he took part in the sub-launched ballistic missile test on Saturday that Pyongyang must redouble its efforts to strengthen its nuclear capabilities.

They said that the North frequently uses its nuclear card as a negotiating tool with the United States.

Besides calling for a halt to military drills, the country has routinely called for the signing of a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War (1950-53). The conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

South Korea and the United States have brushed off such calls by stressing that the North must first give up its nuclear program. (Yonhap)