New tensions are brewing between the Koreas, with the North flying warplanes near their shared border and launching the latest in a series of missiles, and the South carrying out a live-fire artillery exercise.
North Korean aircraft approached the no-fly zone on the border between 10:30 pm on Thursday and 12:20 am on Friday, according to the Southern Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), in a move that Pyongyang followed a few hours later with its 27th missile launch of the year.
At one point, the North’s aircraft were just 12 kilometers from the northern boundary of the Military Demarcation Line that runs down the center of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, the JCS said.
South Korea responded by launching fighter jets, including its top-of-the-line F-35s.
The North’s state-run Central News Agency said the actions were in response to 10 hours of South Korean artillery drills near the border.
The South Korean military confirmed to the CNN that an artillery exercise took place 10 kilometers from the border, but they said it did not violate an agreement with the North that regulates such exercises. Seoul claims instead that Pyongyang violated the agreement on Friday by firing 170 artillery rounds into the sea off its west coast.
“The firing of artillery into the maritime buffer zones is a clear violation of the September 19 military agreement, and the launching of short-range ballistic missiles is also a violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” the JCS said.
“We strongly caution against repeated provocations by North Korea and strongly urge [a Coreia do Norte] to stop them immediately.”
The flurry of military activity on both sides of the border came just hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned that his nuclear forces are fully prepared for a “real war”.
“Our nuclear combat forces have again proved their full readiness for real war to bring enemies under their control,” Kim said in comments reported by KCNA.
Kim’s fiery statement — his first about North Korea’s missile program in several months — came after he allegedly oversaw the test of long-range cruise missiles on Wednesday over waters west of the Korean Peninsula, according to the statement. KCNA.
On Monday, North Korean state media broke six months of silence on this year’s wave of missile tests, claiming they should demonstrate Pyongyang’s readiness to fire tactical nuclear warheads at potential targets in South Korea.
Tests showed that the country’s forces were “fully ready to hit and destroy the objects at the intended locations at the set time,” KCNA said.
South hits North with new sanctions
North Korea has been developing its nuclear missile forces in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, ramping up its activities since the last of three meetings in 2019 between Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump failed to arrive. to no agreement.
On Friday, in response to Pyongyang’s repeated missile tests, the South imposed its first unilateral sanctions on the North since 2017.
The sanctions target 15 individuals who “contributed to bringing in supplies related to the financing of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and missile development,” the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.
The sanctions also target 16 organizations that participated in North Korea’s evasion of UN sanctions, the ministry said.
The South Korean government hopes the sanctions will have “the effect of blocking illegal transactions of funds with these North Korean agencies and individuals and reminding the domestic and international community of the risks of transacting with them,” the ministry said.
So far, South Korea has independently sanctioned 109 individuals and 89 agencies.
Source: CNN Brasil
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