North Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells into a maritime buffer zone, the latest in a series of provocative military moves that have angered South Korea.
About 130 artillery rounds were simultaneously fired at 14:59pm (05:59 GMT) from two separate sites – one on North Korea’s east coast and one on the west coast, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement on Monday.
North Korea’s military said it was a warning against ongoing South Korean artillery exercises near the inland border town of Cheorwon, and blamed the South for worsening tensions.
Seoul’s military said the barrage was a “clear violation” of the 2018 agreement between the North and the South that established the buffer zone in a bid to reduce tensions.
It said none of the shells crossed the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two countries.
The military said it had issued “several warnings” over the barrage, without giving any further details. North Korea’s military said it fired artillery rounds as a “tit-for-tat” warning in response to South Korea firing dozens of projectiles earlier in the day, state-run KCNA news agency reported.
Credit: Aljazeera.com
