Seoul: North Korea on Tuesday fired a barrage of artillery rounds into waters near rival South Korea for the second consecutive day in a tit-for-tat for ongoing U.S.-South Korea live-fire drills in an inland border region.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected North Korea firing around 90 artillery rounds from the eastern coastal town of Kosong around 10 am and another 10 rounds from the nearby town of Kumkang around 6 pm.
It said the shells landed in the northern side of a maritime buffer zone the Koreas established in 2018 to reduce border tensions. The South said it communicated verbal warnings to North Korea and urged it to abide by the military agreement.
The South Korean assessments were slightly different from details announced by North Korea's military, which said it fired 82 shells from multiple rocket launchers.
An unidentified spokesperson of the North Korean People's Army's General Staff said the firings were meant as a warning against "enemy side" artillery exercises in a region near the inter-Korean land border.
The spokesperson said South Korea was being hypocritical in criticising North Korea for breaching the 2018 agreement, saying the South's unspecified past actions in violation of the agreement must be "calculated first." "The (Korean People's Army) seriously warns the enemy side once again to stop at once the irritating military actions in the area close to the front," the spokesperson said. "Our military counteraction against the continued provocative actions of the enemies will be more offensive as the days go by."
North Korea also on Monday fired around 130 artillery rounds into waters inside the maritime buffer zones with South Korea, while accusing the South of raising unnecessary tension in front-line areas.
The latest North Korean military action has worsened animosity between the rivals, whose relations have sharply declined amid a prolonged pause in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.