North Korea made its most explicit statement yet that it plans to detonate another nuclear device -- its third -- in the near future, in what it said was "a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle."

The National Defense Commission, a body of generals considered the most powerful part of North Korea's authoritarian regime, said the country would launch "a variety of satellites and long-range rockets . . . one after another" and carry out "a nuclear test of higher level."

The commission said the action would be targeted "against the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people," though North Korea has yet to test a missile that could reach the U.S.

North Korea issues near-daily statements critical of the U.S., which sided with South Korea in the Korean War of the 1950s and has kept troops stationed there. But the North rarely mentions the nuclear weapons it has been developing since the 1970s.

Diplomats in Russia, China and South Korea urged North Korea not to test another nuclear explosive, in what would be the country's first such test since dictator Kim Jong Eun succeeded his father in 2011.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Pyongyang has been "needlessly provocative," and that the U.S. is fully prepared for any action by North Korea . The U.S. Treasury on Thursday levied new sanctions, against a Hong Kong-based company and two officials from a North Korean bank it said was linked to North Korea 's weapons programs.

The reference to a test of a "higher level" could suggest North Korea has reached a point where it can test a weapon made from highly enriched uranium, rather than the plutonium fissile material used in its two previous tests. In 2010, North Korea revealed a laboratory in which it was trying to enrich uranium.

Some analysts predict a test timed around the inauguration of South Korea 's new president, Park Geun-hye, on Feb. 25. That would also come amid a changeover of the U.S. national-security lineup; North Korea has often issued provocations to test new administrations in Washington .

The North Korean statement followed the same pattern of increasingly aggressive rhetoric seen before its nuclear explosions in 2006 and 2009. In both cases, rocket launches were followed by United Nations Security Council penalties, which North Korea then cited to justify tests of nuclear explosives.

Last month, North Korea launched a satellite. This week, the Security Council extended its sanctions; that led Pyongyang to issue statements threatening to detonate another nuclear device.

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