North Korea on Monday reaffirmed its independent foreign policy based on nuclear power amid a new complicated international situation created by the launch of the Trump administration.

"It's our unchanged foreign policy to guard the peace in the world as well as on the Korean Peninsula by continuously strengthening self-defense power and pre-emptive strikes centered on nuclear power," the Rodong Sinmun, a daily of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said. 

The paper criticized the United States' annual military drills in South Korea as keeping the Korean Peninsula on the brink of war.

It said the North has been cooperative in struggles by non-aligned and developing nations against imperialism and for the world's peace and stability on the basis of independence, peace and friendship, the paper claimed.