By Hyunsu Yim
SEOUL (Reuters) -North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;said on Thursday deployment of U.S. aircraft carriers, bombers or missile submarines in South&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;could meet criteria for its&nbsp;use of&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;weapons, state media KCNA reported, citing the country's defence minister, Kang Sun Nam.
The comments raise the stakes as each side steps up&nbsp;displays&nbsp;of&nbsp;military&nbsp;force&nbsp;in a standoff&nbsp;over&nbsp;the isolated country's&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
The defence minister's statement also accused the United States and South&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;of escalating tensions in the region while criticizing the first meeting by their&nbsp;Nuclear&nbsp;Consultative Group (NCG).
"The ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the&nbsp;use of&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;weapons specified in the DPRK law," the statement said.
DPRK is short for the&nbsp;North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of&nbsp;Korea.
Kang's remark was aimed at the&nbsp;nuclear-armed Ohio-class U.S. ballistic missile submarine that arrived at a port in the southern city of Busan earlier this week.
"The phase of a&nbsp;military&nbsp;clash on the&nbsp;Korean peninsula has surfaced as a dangerous&nbsp;reality," the KCNA report said.
South&nbsp;Korea's Ministry of National Defense said on Friday the NCG meeting and the deployment of the&nbsp;USS Kentucky were "just defensive countermeasures" against the&nbsp;North's&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;and missile threats.
"North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;will get no concessions from the South&nbsp;Korea-U.S. alliance for its&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;development and threats which will only lead to worsening isolation and hardships," the South&nbsp;Korean ministry said in a statement.
The KCNA report came after a U.S. soldier crossed the border into&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;on Tuesday at a time of heightened tension between the two&nbsp;Koreas and the United States.
North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;has yet to comment on the incident involving the U.S. soldier.
Last year, the reclusive state codified a new, expansive&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;law declaring its status&nbsp;as a&nbsp;nuclear-armed state "irreversible".
That&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;law outlined a "capacious" set of circumstances under which&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;might resort to&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;use, and they're indicating that they see this submarine visit as consistent with those conditions, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"More broadly, though, I think they're seeking to dissuade Washington from regularizing additional shows of reassurance of this nature for the South&nbsp;Koreans," Panda said.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Mike Harrison and Tom Hogue)

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