North Korea orders troops onto war footing
Print Edition
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops onto a war footing from 5pm yesterday after his government issued an ultimatum to South Korea to halt anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts by this afternoon or face military action.
South Korean Vice Defence Minister Baek Seung-joo said it was likely the North would fire at some of the 11 sites where the loudspeakers are set up on the South’s side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries.
Tension escalated on Thursday when North Korea fired four shells into South Korea, according to Seoul, in apparent protest against the broadcasts. The South fired back 29 artillery shells. Pyongyang accused the South of inventing a pretext to fire into North Korea.
Both sides said there were no casualties or damage in their territory, an indication that the rounds were just warning shots.
Since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, Pyongyang and Seoul have often exchanged threats, and dozens of soldiers have been killed, yet the two sides have always pulled back from all-out war.
But the renewed hostility is a further blow to South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s efforts to improve North-South ties, which have been virtually frozen since the deadly 2010 sinking of a South Korean navy ship, which Seoul blames on Pyongyang.
Park cancelled an event yesterday and made a visit to a military command post, dressed in army camouflage.
North Korea’s shelling came after it had demanded last weekend that South Korea end the broadcasts or face military action.
Its 48-hour ultimatum, delivered in a letter to the South Korean Defence Ministry, was also uncharacteristically specific. The deadline is around 5 pm today in Seoul.
Seoul began blasting anti-North Korean propaganda from loudspeakers on the border on August 10, days after landmines wounded two South Korean soldiers along the DMZ, resuming a tactic both sides had stopped in 2004.
North Korea on Monday began its own broadcasts.
Baek told parliament the South’s broadcasts would continue unless North Korea accepted responsibility and apologized for the mines. Pyongyang has denied responsibility. “There is a high possibility that North Korea will attack loudspeaker facilities,” Baek said.
Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency said Kim would put his troops on a “fully armed state of war” from 5pm and had declared a “quasi-state of war” in frontline areas.
There were indications North Korea was preparing to fire short-range missiles, the South’s Yonhap news agency said, citing an unnamed government source.
North Korea often fires rockets into the sea during annual US-South Korean military exercises, which are currently under way. The US military, which bases 28,500 personnel in South Korea, said it was monitoring the situation.
Fishing was suspended around three South Korean islands off the west coast. Most of the nearly 800 South Koreans ordered to leave their dwellings near the border on Thursday had returned, although one village remained evacuated, local officials said.
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