North Korea warned Friday that it would attack South Korea more violently than it did last month if the Seoul proceeds with plans to test-fire artillery from the island Pyongyang shelled.

"It will be deadlier than what was made on Nov. 23 in terms of the powerfulness and sphere of the strike," the Korean People's Army said in a statement relayed by the North's state media.

Four South Koreans died, including two civilians, when North Korea fired about 170 artillery rounds on Yeonpyeong, an island in the Yellow Sea just a few miles away from the North Korean coastline that has been controlled by South Korea for decades.

The shelling destroyed about 30 homes and damaged nearly every building in the small village on the island. Most of the island's 1,400 residents left and haven't returned.

North Korea 's latest statement also reiterated North Korea 's claim of waters that have long been controlled by South Korea near Yeonpyeong and four other islands. North Korea said South Korea and the U.S. "has better cogitate" about its warning.

South Korea 's military and government didn't immediately respond to the warning.

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The statement raises the stakes on what was already seen as a risky test of the fortitude of both Koreas to dispute the inter-Korean maritime border.

The South Korean military announced Thursday it would again stage its monthly artillery test from a marine post on Yeonpyeong sometime from Saturday to Tuesday, depending on weather and other conditions.

South Korea wants to assert its control of islands and water it has possessed since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s, but officials and the public are wary of actions that would escalate the matter into a broader conflict.

Officials in the U.S. , South Korea 's closest military ally since the Korean War, also worry about retaliation that spirals out of control.

"What you don't want to have happen out of that is for the escalation to be--for us to lose control of the escalation," Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon Thursday.

North Korea after the Nov. 23 attack claimed it fired on the island because it was defending its territorial waters from shells South Korea fired in a test that day. The claim confused South Korea and its allies for awhile because the monthly test is routinely directed away from North Korea and its territorial waters, which South Korea has long understood to be several miles north of the island.

But as North Korea 's explanations for the attack evolved over the following weeks, it later claimed that all of the waters around Yeonpyeong belong to it.

Pyongyang has chafed for years over the inter-Korean maritime boundary drawn at the end of the Korean War of the 1950s, which puts Yeonpyeong in South Korean waters. The maritime boundary forces North Korea commercial and military vessels to make a long trip westward before reaching open sea.

Pyongyang has tested the boundary several times since the late 1990s with naval advances. But last month's attack on Yeonpyeong marked a violent elevation of its claims.

South Korea 's military invited the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which is responsible for assuring compliance with the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War, and the media to observe the new test.

Separately, senior U.S. diplomats concluded a trip to Beijing where they met a top Chinese official, State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who visited North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang last week.

According to Chinese state media, Dai said he believed the so-called six-party talks, a diplomatic process begun in 2003 to persuade North Korea to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons, should be expanded to handle other matters including the current dispute between the two Koreas .

The U.S. and South Korea to date have rebuffed Beijing 's calls for a six-party discussion on the Yeonpyeong Island attack. In addition to China , North Korea , South Korea and the U.S. , the six-party process also includes Japan and Russia . U.S. officials have long sought to keep the six-party process focused on ending Pyongyang 's weapons pursuit.

Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico spent his first full day in Pyongyang on Friday. Richardson, a former U.S. energy secretary who arrived in North Korea Thursday, is one of a small number of former U.S. officials who receives invitations from its authoritarian regime when it wants to send out messages to the U.S. government via nonofficial channels.

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