South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed Kim Yo Jong’s statement as “vulgar and comical propaganda” intended to undermine South Korean people’s confidence in the military and fuel divisions .
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired more than 90 rounds near the two neighboring countries’ disputed western coastal border on Sunday afternoon. South Korea strongly urged North Korea to immediately stop provocative acts.
The North Korean military confirmed that it used coastal artillery systems to conduct live-fire exercises. It said the exercises were part of its military training programs and that the direction of its shells posed no threat to South Korea.
On Friday, North Korea launched around 200 shells. South Korea accused him of also firing more than 60 shots on Saturday, which his rival denied.
Kim Yo Jong said North Korea only detonated explosive powder simulating the sound of its coastal artillery on the shore on Saturday, to test the South Korean military’s detection capabilities.
“The result was clear, as we expected. They misjudged the sound of the explosion as the sound of gunfire and conjectured it as a provocation. They even made a false and brazen statement that the shells fell north of the maritime border, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement published by state media.
“I can’t not say that the (South Korean) people are very pitiful, because they entrust security to these blind people and offer them huge taxes,” she said, referring to the training military of its rival with the United States.
Animosity between the two Koreas has reignited since North Korea conducted a barrage of missile tests in 2022.
North Korea’s artillery fire Friday prompted South Korea to ask its troops on border islands to fire artillery shells near the maritime border in response. The shells launched by the two Koreas fell within a maritime buffer zone they had established as part of a 2018 military agreement on reducing frontline military tensions.
The agreement requires the Koreas to stop live-fire exercises, aerial surveillance and other hostile acts along their border, but the agreement now risks collapsing since both Koreas have failed to comply with it.
Experts expect North Korea to step up its weapons tests ahead of South Korea’s legislative elections in April and the U.S. presidential elections in November. They say Kim Jong Un likely believes a beefed-up weapons arsenal would allow him to extract greater U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
In his statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong called the South Korean military “gangsters” and “clowns in military uniforms.” She also suggested that South Korea’s possible miscalculation could cause an accidental clash between the rival countries, endangering the security of Seoul, a city of 10 million located just an hour’s drive from the land border.
2024-01-07 19:27:30
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