SEOUL, South Korea—North Korea fired artillery rounds close to its tense maritime border with the South on Sunday once more, mocking the South's capacity to detect the country's weapon launches. Kim Jong Un's sister is the leader of North Korea.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea rejected Kim Yo Jong's remarks, calling them “a comedy-like, vulgar propaganda” intended to incite divisions and erode public confidence in the armed forces.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Sunday afternoon, North Korea launched over ninety rounds close to their disputed western maritime boundary. It stated that South Korea has asked North Korea to immediately cease its provocative actions.
Later, the North Korean military acknowledged that live-firing exercises were conducted using coastal artillery weapons. It claimed that the exercises were a required component of its military training plans and that South Korea posed no threat from the direction in which its shells were shot.
North Korea said that it had fired over 200 rounds on Friday. Retaliating, South Korea said that the North had launched over 60 rounds on Saturday. However, the communist north disputes that.
Tensions between the two Koreas are high as a result of North Korea's constant missile launches since 2022 and South Korea's expansion of its tit-for-tat military training program with the US.
South Korea's forces on border islands fired artillery rounds close to the sea boundary in retaliation for North Korea's artillery firings on Friday. The two Koreas' rounds struck a marine buffer zone they had set up in accordance with a 2018 military accord aimed at reducing front-line military tensions.
The agreement calls for the Koreas to stop conducting aerial surveillance, live-fire drills, and other hostile actions along their border; but, because the two Koreas have committed actions that violate the agreement, the pact is in danger of failing.
Ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November and the South Korean legislative elections in April, experts predict that North Korea would intensify its nuclear testing and intensify its signature caustic rhetoric against its adversaries.
