The two Koreas exchanged warning shots on their sea border today accusing each other of violating it, as reported by the armies of both countries, in a new sign of the growing tension on the peninsula.
“Today (Monday, October 24) around 03:42 (18:42 GMT on Sunday), a North Korean merchant invaded the Northern Limit Line (which marks the inter-Korean western maritime border) about 27 kilometers northeast of Baengnyeong Island in the West Sea (the name given to the Yellow Sea in the two Koreas) and the South Korean army took measures for their evacuation through messages and emergency fire,” reported the southern Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
Shortly after the North argued that the South Korean warning patrol in turn violated the border and fired “ten projectiles from multiple rocket launchers into territorial waters where enemy movement was detected, at 5:15 am (20:15 GMT on Sunday),” a spokesman for the Northern General Staff detailed in a message released by the KCNA agency.
According to the text, the vessel “crossed the Northern Limit Line (LLN) under the control of the Korean People’s Army between 2.5 and 5 kilometers in waters about 20 kilometers from Baengnyeong at around 3:50 a.m. (18:50 GMT on Sunday).
Drawn by the US-led UN Command at the end of the Korean War in 1953, the NLL is not recognized by Pyongyang and has been the scene of battles that have left dead on both sides in 1999, 2002, 2009 and 2010.
The South Korean military said North Korea launched the 10 rockets from the border province of South Hwanghae and that the projectiles landed in sea areas along the NLL 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.
Therefore, Seoul today insisted that today’s launches, like the artillery rounds that Pyongyang has fired last week, represent a violation of said agreement and called on the northern troops to “immediately cease the repeated provocations and hostile arguments, since they are acts that harm peace and stability”.
The tension in the region is reaching levels similar to those of 2017 as a result of the recent increase in the frequency of projectile launches by North Korea, the tests with which Seoul and Washington are replicating, and the possibility of a new atomic test, since the satellites indicate that Pyongyang has been ready for months to carry out one .
Seoul announces maneuvers in the Yellow Sea after the exchange of fire with the North
The South Korean Navy announced that from today until October 27 will carry out “large-scale” maneuvers in the Yellow Seathe scene just hours before an exchange of warning fire between Seoul and Pyongyang.
Is about “a large-scale maritime exercise that functions as preparation for enemy provocations” in which the South Korean Army, Air Force and Coast Guard also participate, in addition to US troops, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detailed in a statement.
In the maneuvers, which will be carried out in the surroundings of the so-called Northern Limit Line (LLN), about 20 ships of the South Korean navy, including frigates or destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile system, Coast Guard vessels or Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighters and, on the US side, Apache helicopters or A-10 attack planes.
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“The main exercisel seek rapid detection of enemy forces either by air or sea around the northwestern islands of the western coast and execute a rapid response by special combat units,” adds the JCS text.
The announcement comes just hours after the two Koreas exchanged fire today. warning around the NLL accusing each other of violating it.