South Korea has retaliated to new threats made by North Korea, vowing to seek “resolute punishment”.
On Tuesday, Seoul’s Defence Ministry expressed concern over Pyongyang’s announcement that it is considering restarting loudspeaker broadcasts along the border.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, also told state-owned media that the country is mulling over the decision to deploy “additional tactical weapons” near the border. No specific details on what this would look like were given.
The ramped-up confrontation comes after North Korea accused the South of firing warning shots and issuing warning broadcasts numerous times at the border since August under “such an unreasonable pretext”.
South Korea defends warning shots
Seoul’s Defence Ministry defended the broadcasts and warning shots near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), describing them as a “legitimate defensive measure” aimed at preventing incursions and forcing North Korean troops who cross the line.
"If North Korea uses our legitimate measures as a pretext to carry out further provocations, we will punish it resolutely,” the ministry said.
It urged Pyongyang to stop making what it called groundless claims, halt incursions across the MDL and respond to efforts to resolve “differences between the two sides over the line”.
Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Jin Young-seung reviewed military readiness while visiting a frontline army command, and ordered operations aimed at strengthening Seoul's initiative in the Demilitarized Zone.
“We cannot tolerate North Korea falsely characterising our legitimate operational measures as provocations and shifting responsibility for heightened military tensions onto our military,” he said
North Korea ramps up mines on the border
In recent years, tensions along the Korean border, one of the world's most heavily fortified, have increased as North Korea added mines, barbed wire fences, anti-tank barriers and other front-line fortifications in line with its policy of terminating ties with South Korea.
South Korea’s military previously said that North Korean soldiers have violated the border’s military demarcation line 50 times this year during their fortification works.
In 2015, mine blasts blamed on North Korea that maimed two South Korean soldiers pushed the Koreas to the brink of an armed conflict, after South Korea resumed front-line loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years.
Loudspeaker broadcasts are one of the old-fashioned, Cold War-era psychological warfare campaigns the two Koreas have occasionally used against each other in times of confrontation.
North Korea tends to play general noises such as sirens and drums, as well as howling animal cries – while South Korea has aired K-pop songs and news reports, striking a nerve for Pyongyang who is notorious for its extreme sensitivity to any external criticism.
Since taking office last year, South Korea's liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, halted such broadcasts as part of efforts to improve ties with North Korea. North Korea was later reported to have started dismantling its own broadcasts.
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