North Korea fires artillery shells near South Korean border as Seoul kicks off drills

Asia-Pacific, News October 19, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

North Korea fired more than 250 rounds of artillery shells near its eastern and western coast close to the South Korean border on October 19, 2022, as a reaction to South Korea’s Hoguk defense drills that started two days ago.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) released a statement shortly after the shells were fired. It stated that a total of 250 shells were fired by the North Korean military. 100 shells were fired from the west coast while 150 shells were fired from the east coast near the South Korean border.

According to the South Korean JCS, the shells fell about 40 to 50 kilometers away from South Korea’s populous metropolitan region inside the maritime buffer zone that was established between North and South Korea back in 2018 in order to reduce front-line confrontations.

This is the second time in the last ten days that North Korea has fired shells into the buffer zone. Earlier on October 14, the North Korean military fired hundreds of shells around the same locations. South Korean JCS stated that North Korea’s actions are a blatant violation of the 2018 inter-Korean agreement.

“We strongly urge North Korea to immediately halt its actions,” the JCS said in a statement. “North Korea’s continued provocations are actions that undermine peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the international community,” it added.

North Korean People’s Army (KPA) also released a statement regarding the incident. It said that the shots were fired to send a ‘grave warning’ to South Korea for its own artillery training that took place earlier this week.

The KPA General Staff released a statement on North Korea’s state-owned media outlet KCNA. It said that “In order to send a grave warning once again, it made sure that KPA units on the east and west fronts conducted a threatening, warning fire toward the east and west seas in the night of October 18, as a powerful military countermeasure.”

*^{North Korean People’s Army front-line long-range artillery division and air force squadron during a training exercise, on October 6, 2022. (Image Credit: KCNA/AFP/via KNS)}*

South Korean military is currently conducting the Hoguk defense drills. The drills that started on October 17 are due to end on October 22. Hoguk is the latest installment to the series of South Korean military drills amid rising tension in the region.

Earlier, the South Korean military conducted maritime and aerial defense exercises with the U.S. military in order to boost the ability to respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.

Tensions in the Korean Peninsula have been rising since the U.S. Navy brought a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, to South Korea along with its strike group for the first time since 2018. The carrier participated in the naval drills and it is now docked at a naval base in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan.