- The artillery rounds fell on the maritime borders that both countries delimited in a 2018 agreement.
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| North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on September 6, 2022. |
Pyongyang continues to fire artillery in response to Seoul maneuvers
The North Korean army fired several rounds of artillery again on Wednesday near the inter-Korean border in response to maneuvers that the southern troops are carrying out in its territory until October 28 and that reflect the current level of tension on the peninsula.
"The Republic of Korea Army (the official name of South Korea) detected that North Korea fired about 100 artillery rounds at around 12:30 p.m. (3:30 GMT) today (Wednesday, October 19) from the coastal area of the Yeonan County in South Hwanghae Province to the West Sea (the name given to the Yellow Sea in the two Koreas)," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
A military agreement
Pyongyang fired similar shots at the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan on Tuesday. As on Wednesday, the artillery rounds ended up in the waters next to the maritime borders that both countries delimited in a military agreement signed in 2018 in which they promised to avoid maneuvers or exercises with live fire in said areas.
The JCS has once again insisted that this use of artillery is "a clear violation" of the aforementioned military agreement. This Wednesday a North Korean military spokesman assured that these practices with live fire are a response to "the repeated military provocations" that Seoul poses with its maneuvers.
Beginning of the annual exercises
South Korea began its annual Hoguk exercises on Monday, which will last until October 28 and include the participation of units from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as some US troops.
Added to this are the large air maneuvers that Seoul and Washington are planning between October 31 and November 4 and the possibility that Pyongyang, which recently launched nine missile launches in a period of just 20 days, will carry out its first test. atomic since 2017.
North Korea, which has been completely isolated from the outside since the start of the pandemic and approved a weapons modernization plan in 2021, has refused to resume dialogue with the South or the United States and, according to satellites, has been prepared for months to do a new nuclear test in Punggye-ri (northeast).
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