North Korean state media said on Wednesday around 1.4 million young people had applied to join or return to the army this week, blaming Seoul for a provocative drone incursion that had brought the "tense situation to the brink of war".

Senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan were set to meet in Seoul on Wednesday amid rising tensions surrounding North Korea's destruction of roads to the South and accusations of drone flights by the South over its capital.

North Korea blew up the northern parts of inter-Korean roads no longer in use on Tuesday, South Korea said, as tensions between the two keep rising.