North Korea on Friday threatened “physical counter-measures” against rival South Korea — the latest in a series of bellicose warnings sparked by a tightening of UN sanctions against Pyongyang.

“If the South Korean puppet regime of traitors directly participates in the so-called UN ‘sanctions’, strong physical countermeasures would be taken,” the North’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Fatherland said.

The warning, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, came a day after North Korea’s top military body threatened to conduct a third nuclear test and boost its ability to strike the United States.

The current upsurge in tensions has its roots in Pyonyang’s defiant decision to push ahead with a long-range rocket launch on December 12 — insisting it was a peaceful mission to place a satellite in orbit.