Pyongyang says it fired shots in ‘serious warning’ over Seoul military drills

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Wednesday said it fired artillery shots into the waters along the border with South Korea overnight in a warning over Seoul’s military drills.

The Korean People’s Army (KPA) conducted a “threatening, warning fire toward the east and west seas … as a powerful military countermeasure,” a spokesperson for the General Staff of the KPA said in a statement published by state news agency KCNA.

The spokesperson warned Seoul to “immediately stop the reckless and inciting provocations escalating the military tension in the forefront area.”

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that North Korea fired more than 250 artillery shells from its west and east coasts into maritime buffer zones near the heavily fortified border dividing the two countries that were established in 2018 to reduce tensions.

None of the projectiles fell into South Korean territorial waters, the JCS said. South Korea, however, accused the neighboring country of violating the 2018 military agreement that set up the buffers.

On Monday, Seoul kicked off its annual Hoguk defense drills, which are due to run until Oct. 28. The KPA statement characterized the exercises as “the enemy’s war drill against the north.”

The situation on the Korean peninsula is currently very tense. Nuclear-armed North Korea has conducted a string of missile tests in the past few weeks.

The government in Pyongyang has said in its own statements that the tests were intended to simulate the firing of tactical nuclear weapons at South Korean airfields.

U.N. resolutions prohibit North Korea from testing ballistic missiles of any range, some of which are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.