North Korea's state newspaper has singled out the United States' deployment of 1250 marines to Darwin to claim America is preparing for nuclear war.
And as regional tensions escalate and a US carrier strike group approaches the Korean peninsula, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the secretive regime "must be stopped" as it represented a threat to the region and, potentially, globally.
In a phone call with US president Donald Trump, Chinese president Xi Jinping said China opposed any actions that went against UN security council resolutions, as Japan confirmed it was joining drills with the strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson that is headed to Korean waters.
Pusan National University associate professor Robert Kelly told Fairfax Media North Korea's missiles might have the range to reach northern Australia, but played down the threat as "the question is guidance, not range".
Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of the Worker's Party of North Korea, highlighted the US marines' arrival in northern Australia on April 18. The marines will be joined by 12 military helicopters including five Cobra helicopters and four Osprey carriers.
"This is the largest scale US military presence in Australia after World War 2," the newspaper reported on Monday.
"America is fanatically, crazily trying to optimise its nuclear war readiness," it claimed.
The story, on page six of the North Korean newspaper, was headlined: America prepares for nuclear war in different overseas military deployments. Darwin was the only city named.
North Korea's news agency, KCNA, kept up the bellicose threats against the US and its "followers" on Monday, reporting that North Korea's defence chief Pak Young-sik told a meeting on the eve of the regime's military anniversary: "Our nuclear weapons capable of striking US military bases in Asia-Pacific areas and the US homeland are fully prepared to be fired from launchers."
The singling out of northern Australia came two days after North Korean news agency KCNA attacked Ms Bishop for supporting the US policy that "all options are on the table" to stop North Korea's nuclear program.
Speaking in Turkey ahead of Tuesday's Anzac Day service, Ms Bishop stepped up her criticism of the North Korean regime's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
"Make no mistake, North Korea is a threat to the region and potentially globally and it must be stopped in its attempts to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that are capable of targeting the United States and other countries in our region," she said.
Asked if people living in Australia's north should be concerned by the threats from Pyongyang, Ms Bishop said: "North Korea has been threatening nuclear war against a number of countries, that's why it must be stopped in its ambitions to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles".
"A North Korea with nuclear weapons is not an area in which we want to live, it would be a threat to our region and to global security."
Professor Kelly told Fairfax Media that if North Korea decided to fire its inter-continental ballistic missiles "they will hit regional stuff like Okinawa [in Japan] or Guam, or US bases in South Korea. The US deployment in Darwin is not large and it's about the South China Sea."
"I think there is consensus they can't strike the continental US, if they could we [the United States] would be bombing them already."
" The likelihood of an American strike on North Korea is below 10 to one, though it's the highest it has been for some time."
Australia-based defence experts believe it is unlikely North Korea has the capacity to strike Australia yet, though they may do within the next three years. The nation's most recent missile test, earlier this month, failed just seconds after launch.
North Korean state media has claimed the country can strike enemies anywhere on earth, which is untrue. It also frequently reports wild conspiracy theories.
North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman had threatened that Australia was moving within the regime's nuclear strike range.
Beijing was also criticised for "dancing to the tune" of the US, and threatened with "catastrophic consequences", by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday.
In recent days, North Korean media have attacked the South Korean and Japanese governments for supporting US President Donald Trump's threats of tough new sanctions, and the potential of unilateral action, should North Korea test its sixth nuclear weapon.
The deployment of 1250 marines is the largest to Darwin since the former prime minister Julia Gillard and former president Barack Obama struck a deal back in 2011 to undertake the yearly rotation of troops.
with Sanghee Liu, AAP
