North Korea cancelled on Friday peace pacts with its neighbor, the South, few hours after new UN sanctions against the communist state.

North Korea cancelled on Friday peace pacts with its neighbor, the South, few hours after new UN sanctions against the communist state.

North Korea "abrogates all agreements on non-aggression reached between the North and the South", the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said in a statement.

A non-aggression pact signed in 1991 endorsed the peaceful settlement of disputes and the prevention of accidental military clashes.

The CPRK said the pact would be voided as of Monday, the same day that Pyongyang has vowed to rip up the 1953 armistice agreement that ended Korean War hostilities, would come into effect when the US-South Korean military drill begins.

"It also notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline," the committee said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The hotline was installed in 1971 and the North has severed it on five occasions in the past -- most recently in 2010.

Pyongyang's latest announcement came hours after the UN Security Council beefed up existing sanctions on the communist state in response to its February 12 nuclear test.

The resolution adopted by the 15-member Council added new names to the UN sanctions blacklist and tightened restrictions on North Korea's financial dealings, notably its suspect "bulk cash" transfers.

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said that the new sanctions will "bite hard".
"They increase North Korea's isolation and raise the cost to North Korea's leaders of defying the international community."