North Korea’s defence minister warned Saturday that a pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States, in comments carried by the North’s official news agency. “We will never sit with arms folded and watch until the US attacks us,” said Kim Il Chol, vice marshal of the North’s Korean People’s Army, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “A pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the US,” he said. The warning, which is not new, came as North Korea’s top nuclear envoy was in Japan for a security conference that also is drawing his counterparts from the US and other participants in six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear programme.