N Korea sends a “grave warning” to Seoul by firing artillery shells

• North Korea launched hundreds of artillery projectiles off its eastern and western shores.
• The shells landed inside marine buffer zones.
• The two Koreas were established under an inter-Korean agreement.

As South Korea conducted its yearly defense exercises designed to strengthen its capacity to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats, North Korea launched hundreds of artillery projectiles off its eastern and western shores.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of South Korea reported that North Korea launched a further 100 shells beginning around lunchtime on Wednesday after launching over 250 shells toward its eastern and western shores late on Tuesday.

According to the report, the shells landed inside marine buffer zones that the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement intended to lessen hostilities on the front lines rather than in South Korean territorial seas.

Since firing hundreds of shells into the buffer zones last Friday in its most severe direct breach of the 2018 agreement, North Korea has fired shells into the buffer zones twice more, according to the event.

The JCS issued a statement urging North Korea to immediately stop its acts.

It went on to say that North Korea’s ongoing provocations “undermine the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the international community.”

In reaction to South Korea’s own artillery training that took place earlier on Tuesday in an eastern border zone, a spokesperson for the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) stated on Wednesday that the shots were intended to send a “grave warning” to South Korea. If such firings had taken place, Seoul did not immediately confirm it.

The Hoguk drills, which will end on Saturday, are the most recent in a string of military maneuvers that South Korea has carried out recently, including combined operations with the US and Japan.

South Korea’s “war exercise against the north is going on in a frenetic manner,” according to the KPA General Staff.

According to a statement sent to state media KCNA, it “made sure that KPA troops on the east and west fronts conducted a threatening, warning fire toward the east and west oceans in the night of October 18 in order to deliver a grave warning once again.”

The opponents must halt their rash and provocative provocations that are raising military tension on the front lines right away.

Less international attention is paid to North Korea’s artillery experiments than to its missile launches. However, its long-range artillery guns that are stationed in advance pose a significant security risk to South Korea’s populated metropolitan area, which is just approximately 40 to 50 kilometers (25 to 30 miles) from the North Korean border.

In response to their “dangerous military activities” involving a US aircraft carrier, North Korea has carried out a number of weapons tests in recent weeks in what it describes as rehearsals of nuclear strikes on South Korean and US targets. Regular military drills between Washington and Seoul are seen in Pyongyang as a practice for an invasion.

Since it started testing again on September 25, North Korea has launched 15 missiles for test purposes. One of them displayed a range that may extend as far as the US territory of Guam in the Pacific and beyond when flying over Japan.

Tokyo imposed more sanctions on North Korea on Tuesday, including four trading companies and the Ministry of Rocket Industry in Pyongyang.

Yoshimasa Hayashi, the foreign minister of Japan, announced the new measures by saying, “North Korea is conducting a series of provocative acts with high frequency, such as firing ballistic missiles 23 times this year.”

He stressed that Pyongyang’s actions were “violent” and “completely unacceptable.”

On Friday, South Korea blacklisted 15 North Koreans and 16 institutions involved in missile development, enacting its first unilateral penalties against the North in five years.

According to some international experts, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would eventually like to persuade the US and other countries to acknowledge his country as a legitimate nuclear state and relieve economic sanctions on North Korea by using his expanded arsenal of weapons.

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