North Korea has warned that planned joint US and South Korean military drills are pushing the peninsula to the brink of war as a US military commander headed to an island devastated this week by a North Korean artillery barrage. North Korea’s state news agency said drills this weekend involving South Korean forces and a US nuclear powered supercarrier in waters south of Tuesday’s skirmish between the two countries are a reckless plan by “trigger-happy elements” and target the North. “The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war,” the dispatch from the Korean central news agency said. The comments came ahead of a planned visit today by General Walter Sharp, the US military commander in South Korea, to the island targeted by the North Korean attack to show solidarity with ally Seoul. Though North Korea regularly threatens to rain munitions down on its rival, the two Koreas are required to abide by an armistice signed in 1953 at the end of their three-year war. North Korea does not recognise the maritime line drawn by UN forces and blamed South Korean military exercises near Yeonpyeong Island this week for the clash, calling them a violation…