North Korea fired about 100 more artillery shells toward the sea Wednesday in response to South Korean live-firing drills at border areas as the rivals accuse each other of dialing up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with weapons tests.
The drills conducted by both sides come amid heightened animosities over recent North Korean missile tests that it calls simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and US targets.
South Korea’s military detected the artillery being fired from a western North Korean coastal town, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. On Tuesday night, North Korea fired about 100 shells off its west coast and 150 rounds off its east coast, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier.
Both days, the North Korean shells landed in the northern parts of the maritime buffer zones the two Koreas created off their eastern and western coasts as part of agreements they made in 2018 to reduce tensions, according to the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
North Korea also fired hundreds of shells at the buffer zones last Friday, in its most significant direct violation of the 2018 agreement, The Associated Press reported.
North Korea’s military said the launches were a warning against what it called provocative South Korean artillery firing drills along the border earlier this week.
“Our army strongly warns the enemy forces to immediately stop the highly irritating provocative act in the frontline areas,” an unidentified spokesperson at the General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army said in a statement Wednesday.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it conducted artillery drills at land border areas as part of its annual military exercises. But it said its drills didn’t violate the 2018 accord because its shells didn’t land in the buffer zones.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff warned North Korea to immediately stop provocations that threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. It added that it is boosting its military readiness and, in coordination with the United States, is closely monitoring North Korea’s moves.
