Communist North Korea threatened on Tuesday to abandon its commitment to the entire 1953 Korean War armistice if sanctions such as a naval blockade are imposed on it because of its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.War warnings and comments the United States is poised to attack the North have been almost daily fare in Pyongyang's official media since the nuclear crisis flared up late last year. Washington wants multilateral talks on the crisis.

It was not immediately clear whether the latest statement, from the North's Korean People's Army (KPA) broke that pattern or was more of the same. South Korean shares drifted in tight ranges at the opening, supported by pension fund stock buying but held back by renewed concerns about North Korea.

SOUTH SEES SABRE-RATTLING

In Seoul, South Korea's Defense Ministry said no unusual moves by the North Koreans were sighted and that the comments appeared to be more of Pyongyang's saber-rattling as it agitates for bilateral talks with Washington over the nuclear crisis.

"Nothing has been going on," a ministry spokesman said, adding the South was monitoring the border situation.

There was no immediate comment from the Seoul-based and U.S.-led United Nations Command that oversees the armistice.

In the early 1990s, Pyongyang announced it would not adhere to the pact, signed in 1953 by China and North Korea on the communist side and by the United Nations Command on the side of the international community.

South Korea is not a signatory to the armistice, which has never been replaced by a peace treaty, leaving the million-strong army of the North technically in a state of war with South, whose 650,000-member military is backed by 37,000 U.S. troops.

The standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear program has been simmering since mid-October, when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a program to enrich uranium in violation of major international treaty commitments.

Since then, North Korea has expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and withdrawn from the treaty that aims to curb the global spread of nuclear weapons and said it was ready to restart a mothballed reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.

Pyongyang has insisted it intends only to produce electricity and that the nuclear row is a bilateral dispute with Washington that can be resolved only through two-way talks leading to a non-aggression treaty. Washington favors multilateral talks and wants China and Russia -- with close ties to the North -- to help in that process.

PHOTO CAPTION

North Korean soldiers ride in the back of a truck at a village near Mount Kumgang in North Korea, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2003. (AP Photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon,