North Korea accuses South of provocation after | Political News

Meanwhile, the Pyongyang state media said that the incident occurred as North Korean troopers labored to completely seal the frontier dividing the peninsula, according to a assertion by Lt Gen Ko Jong Chol.

Ko called the event a “premeditated and deliberate provocation,” saying that Seoul’s navy used a machine gun to fire more than 10 warning pictures.

“This is a very serious prelude that would inevitably drive the situation in the southern border area, where a huge number of forces are stationing in confrontation with each other, to the uncontrollable phase,” said Ko.

The last time the 2 nations had an incident at the border was in early April, when South Korea fired warning pictures at 10 North Korean troopers, who briefly crossed the zone.

The North Korean navy announced last October that it was planning to completely shut off the southern border, saying that it had despatched a message to the US to “prevent any misjudgment and accidental conflict.”

Soon after, sections of unused yet deeply symbiotic roads and railroad tracts connecting the North to the South have been blown up. Ko warned that North Korea’s military would retaliate against any interference in its plants to completely seal the border.

Before Lee took workplace, relations between the 2 Koreas had reached the bottom level in years, but following his election, he promised to pursue dialogue with the mysterious nation, saying last week that the federal government “will take consistent measures to substantially reduce tensions and restore trust.”

Still, South Korea and the US started their annual joint workouts on Monday in preparation for potential threats from the North. Lee called the drills “defensive” and said they have been “not intended to heighten tensions.”

But North Korea, which attacked the South in 1950, sparking the Korean War, has traditionally been insulted by these workouts, calling them rehearsals for invasion.

Earlier this week, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un called for the “rapid expansion” of the nation’s nuclear weapons functionality, pointing it in the direction of the continued US-South Korean navy workouts, which he claimed might “ignite a war.”

His sister, Kim Yo Jong, the Deputy Director of the Publicity and Information Department, has said that Seoul “cannot be a diplomatic partner” of the North, calling President Lee “not the sort of man who will change the course of history.”