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North Korea Orders New Artillery Firings In Response To South Korean Drills

The South Korean army is conducting live-fire exercises with multiple rocket launchers and howitzers in two separate testing grounds in the Cheorwon region, which began on Monday and will last until Wednesday

Photo Credit : KCNA,

Kim Jong-un (File Picture)

North Korea's military has ordered frontline units to fire artillery into the sea for the second day in a row in response to South Korean live-fire drills in an inland border region.

The statement by the General Staff of the North Korean People's Army came a day after the North fired about 130 artillery rounds into waters near its western and eastern sea borders with South Korea, in the latest military action that has heightened tensions between the rivals.

According to an unidentified North Korean military spokesperson, the planned artillery firings on Tuesday were intended as a warning to the South after the North detected signs of South Korean artillery exercises in the border region.

The South Korean army is conducting live-fire exercises with multiple rocket launchers and howitzers in two separate testing grounds in the Cheorwon region, which began on Monday and will last until Wednesday.

After detecting dozens of South Korean projectiles flying southeast from the Cheorwon region, North Korea's military said Monday that it ordered its western and eastern coastal units to fire artillery as a warning.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean shells fell within buffer zones established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement to reduce military tensions and urged the North to follow through.

It was the first time North Korea fired weapons into the maritime buffer zones since Nov. 3, when around 80 artillery shells landed within the zone of North Korea's eastern coast.

This year, North Korea has conducted dozens of missile tests, including multiple tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile system capable of reaching deep into the United States mainland and an intermediate-range missile launched over Japan.

North Korea has also carried out a series of short-range launches that it described as simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and US targets in retaliation for an expansion of joint US-South Korean military exercises that North Korea sees as rehearsals for an invasion.

According to experts, North Korea hopes to negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength, forcing the US to accept it as a nuclear power. South Korean officials have suggested that North Korea may conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.


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