By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) -North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;denounced on Friday a U.S. aircraft&nbsp;carrier's&nbsp;visit&nbsp;to&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea, calling it a&nbsp;provocation&nbsp;that could bring "irrevocable, catastrophic circumstances".
The nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan and its strike group arrived in the&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean port of Busan on Thursday for a five-day&nbsp;visit, after allied exercises in nearby waters, in a show of force against&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea.
The aircraft&nbsp;carrier's&nbsp;visit&nbsp;showed that a U.S. scheme for a nuclear attack on&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;had reached "the most serious&nbsp;phase",&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's official KCNA news agency said, adding this meant "the outbreak of a nuclear war comes to the fore".
"It is an undisguised military&nbsp;provocation&nbsp;driving the situation to irrevocable catastrophic circumstances," KCNA said in a commentary.
U.S. and&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean forces have been staging intensified military exercises this year, involving U.S. aircraft carriers, submarines and advanced bombers, in order, they say, to better respond to evolving&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korean nuclear and missile threats.
North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;calls the drills a rehearsal for invasion.
Seth Koenig, a spokesman for the carrier strike group, said it frequently&nbsp;visits&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;providing "opportunities to build interoperability at sea together towards shared goals of a free and open Indo Pacific".
The&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korean news agency said that in case of an imminent nuclear attack,&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;would take "necessary action", as enshrined in its nuclear doctrine, to "thoroughly deter and repel U.S. and its stooges' frantic moves to ignite a nuclear war".
Our "most powerful and rapid first strike will be given to the 'extended deterrence' means,&nbsp;used by the U.S. to hallucinate its followers, and the bases of evil in the&nbsp;Korean peninsula and its vicinity," KCNA said.
The term "extended deterrence" means the ability of the U.S. military, particularly its nuclear forces, to deter attacks on allies.
U.S., Japanese and&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean nuclear envoys will hold two days of talks from Monday in the Indonesian capital to discuss&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea, the Japanese and&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean foreign ministries said.
Japan has regularly participated in air and naval exercises with the allies.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Daewoung Kim in Busan; Additional reporting Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Editing by Stephen Coates, Robert Birsel)

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North Korea says US carrier's visit to South 'undisguised' provocation