2024-01-05 13:32:43
North Korea For two hours this Friday, it fired more than 200 artillery shells off its western coast, near the South Korean islands of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The artillery fell north of the Northern Boundary Line, a disputed de facto border drawn by the United Nations at the end of the Korean War in 1953. No civilians or military personnel were harmed, the JCS added, calling the incident “provocative act that threatens peace and increases tension on the Korean Peninsula.
In response, the South Korean military said it would carry out its own maritime shooting exercise on Friday afternoonResidents of Yeonpyeong Island were ordered to evacuate to nearby shelters during that time and “refrain from outdoor activities,” according to a message on the government website. A local resident told CNN they received the same indication via text message.
“Annihilate them completely”: Kim Jong-un’s threat against the United States and South Korea
In Yeonpyeong, A tiny island of just 8 square km is home to more than 2,100 people, according to the website of its local office. The island of Baengnyeong, of about 47 square km, has more than 4,900 inhabitants. It is not new for North Korea to fire projectiles into the maritime buffer zone, but these acts raise tensions.
“We seriously warn that the entire responsibility for such crisis situations lies with North Korea and we strongly urge its immediate cessation,” said Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Colonel Lee Sung Jun, as published by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
He described the act as “provocative” and announced that it will be responded to with live fire exercises on the northwest border islands.
Deteriorated agreements and tension
A military agreement had been signed in 2018 as part of efforts with the United States to contain the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula and expand the buffer zone between the two Koreas.
But the relationships They have deteriorated since then.: Seoul withdrew from the agreement and both sides intensified military exercises and weapons tests.
The South Korean armed forces are now collaborating with the United States to follow the movements of the parties and will take “measures that correspond to North Korea’s provocations,” he warned this Friday.
the JCS.
Yeonpyeong Island: the conflict
The Northern Boundary Line runs three nautical miles off the North Korean coast and puts five offshore islands under South Korean control. North Korea proposed a different line, which would extend the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two nations southwest to the Yellow Sea, rather than along the North Korean coast.
The Yeonpyeong Island is located off the northwest coast of South Koreanext to the border with its northern neighbor, and was for years a point of conflict between both parties.
In November 2010, following South Korean coastal military maneuvers, Pyongyang launched an attack on the island in which two marines and two civilians were killed. This resulted in an island-wide evacuation, and South Korean forces returned fire.
The confrontation was one of the worst outbreaks of violence in years. At that time, the secretary general of the United Nations called the North Korean attack a “one of the most serious incidents since the end of the Korean War.”
Technically, the war never officially ended; An armistice ended hostilities in 1953, but there was never a peace treaty. Although diplomats from Seoul and Washington have discussed an agreement to end the war in recent years, those efforts have faltered as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen again, especially over Pyongyang’s intensification of its weapons development program and its missile tests.
On Sunday, North Korean state news agency KCNA reported that the nation’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had declared that the State will no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with South Korea. He stated that inter-Korean relations have become “a relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war“.
LT
#Tension #North #Korea #fired #projectiles #South #Korean #islands