North Korea on Thursday condemned a fresh package of sanctions imposed on it by the UN Security Council.

In an English-language statement released on the state-run Korean Central News Agency, the North's foreign ministry said the country "strongly censures and categorically rejects" the sanctions, adopted in response to the country's fifth nuclear test in September.

The statement said the move was "another excess of authority and violation of the DPRK's sovereignty by the UNSC acting under instructions of the US"

DPRK is an acronym for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The statement argued that the nuclear test was only carried out as a "practical step" to tackle the nuclear threat and sanctions by the US and other hostile forces.

"Many countries including all the permanent member states of the UNSC have so far conducted thousands of nuclear tests and rocket launches but the UNSC has never prevented them from doing so," the ministry added. "The 'sanctions resolution' that denied outright the sovereignty of the DPRK and its rights to existence and development will trigger off its tougher countermeasures for self-defense."

The ministry warned that the sanctions will "inevitably escalate tensions" and that the North will hold the US accountable as the chief culprit in that case.

The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted Resolution 2321, with a focus on curtailing North Korea's coal exports, its single biggest export item and source of hard currency. (Yonhap)