North Korea launched a barrage overnight Thursday into Friday at a maritime “buffer zone” near its border with the south, in a fresh consequence of the spectacular rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent days, Seoul said.
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Seoul and Washington have extended their largest-ever joint aerial exercises involving hundreds of warplanes on both sides until Saturday after North Korea conducted what appeared to be a failed ICBM launch on Thursday morning.
Pyongyang said extending the drills was “a very dangerous and poor choice” and fired three short-range ballistic missiles late Thursday.
Shortly after the announcement, as of 11:28 p.m. local time Thursday, Seoul’s military spotted around 80 artillery shells from the north in a maritime “buffer zone” off the Kumkang area of Kangwon province on the east coast of land.
This barrage is “a clear violation” of the 2018 inter-Korean agreement that established these buffer zones to ease tensions between the two sides, the South Korean general staff said.
The United States denounced “the illegal and destabilizing launch of an ICBM.” Seoul and Washington have vowed to take further steps to demonstrate their “determination and capability” in the face of growing threats from the North.
Pyongyang fired around 30 rockets Wednesday and Thursday, including one that ended up near southern sovereign waters for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol spoke of a “de facto territorial invasion”.
Pyongyang’s provocations, “particularly during our time of national mourning, are against humanity and humanism,” argued Lee Hyo-jung, a deputy spokesman for Seoul’s unification ministry, alluding to the stampede that killed 156 people in Seoul on Halloween .
“The government strongly condemns North Korea for its ongoing threats and provocations, based on our annual and defensive drills, which are escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula,” it added. She attributed the rise in tensions to Pyongyang’s “reckless nuclear and missile development.”
The US-South Korean exercises, dubbed “Vigilant Storm,” constitute “an aggressive and provocative military exercise aimed at the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea,” for its part Wednesday condemned the North Korean regime, which threatened Seoul and Washington with “the… to pay most”. terrible prize in history.”
North Korea has always viewed US-South Korean military maneuvers as a dress rehearsal for either invading its territory or overthrowing its regime.
Analysts attribute Pyongyang’s particularly angry response this time to the use of advanced F-35A and F-35B stealth jets during the “Vigilant Storm,” seen as an ideal tool for carrying out “decapitation strikes” against North Korean leaders.
North Korea had already revised its nuclear doctrine in September in order to be able to carry out preventive strikes in the event of an existential threat to the Kim Jong Un regime.
If North Korea’s nuclear “command and control system” is “threatened by an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike will be launched automatically and immediately,” the new doctrine says.
Seoul and Washington have been warning for months that North Korea will conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test.
In addition to the “Vigilant Storm” drill scheduled through Saturday, the South Korean military announced it will conduct its annual “Taegeuk” drill next week, aimed at improving “war performance” and crisis management.
It is a computer-simulated exercise conducted to “build the ability to conduct practical missions in anticipation of various threats such as nuclear weapons, missiles and recent provocations by North Korea,” according to the South Korean military.