Late on Tuesday (local time), North Korea launched artillery shells close to its maritime boundary with South Korea, a day after the South started its annual military exercises to prepare for North Korean provocations.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea fired about 100 shells off its west coast and 150 rounds off its east coast.
There were no reports of hostilities between the rivals, despite repeated requests for North Korea to halt its fire from the South Korean military, according to the source.
The shells, according to South Korea’s military, landed outside the marine buffer zones that the two Koreas established as part of an inter-Korean deal in 2018 intended to lessen hostilities on the front lines.
Since firing hundreds of shells into the buffer zones on Friday (local time), when it committed its largest-ever direct breach of the 2018 agreement, North Korea has only fired shells into the buffer zones twice.
The military of South Korea urged North Korea to stop its provocations that threaten regional peace and security. It said that it is increasing military readiness and that it is closely observing North Korea’s actions in collaboration with the US.
Less outside attention is paid to the North’s artillery testing than its missile launches. But its forward-deployed long-range artillery guns pose a serious security threat to South Korea’s populous metropolitan region, which is about 40 to 50 kilometres from the border with North Korea.
In recent weeks, North Korea has conducted a spate of weapons tests in what it calls simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and US targets in response to their “dangerous military drills” involving a US aircraft carrier. Regular military drills between Washington and Seoul are seen as a practise for an attack by North Korea.
According to North Korea’s military, last week’s artillery drills were intended to warn South Korea off from conducting live-firing manoeuvres along the border, which the North refers to as “reckless provocation.” According to South Korea’s military, its training did not go outside the 2018 agreement.
On Monday (local time), South Korea’s military began its annual 12-day field exercises to improve its operational capabilities in response to various types of North Korean provocations.
Unspecified US forces will take part in this year’s drills, according to the statement.
Since it started testing again on September 25, North Korea has launched 15 missiles for test purposes. One of them was an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a range capable of reaching the Pacific US territory of Guam and beyond.
According to some international experts, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may eventually try to use his increased stockpile of weapons to persuade the United States and other countries to recognise his nation as a legitimate nuclear power and end economic sanctions against it.
North Korea launches artillery projectiles close to the South Korean border.
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