North and South Korea Exchange Fire Across Western Sea Border

South Korea returned artillery fire after North Korea lobbed shells over the two countries’ western sea border pushing tensions to their highest in months.

South Korea’s shells landed in North Korean waters, an official at South Korea’s Defense Ministry said, asking not to be named citing official policy. 

North Korea today earlier notified South Korea of planned live-fire drills, the South’s Defense Ministry spokesman Wi Yong Seob said in a briefing. Residents on the South Korean islands of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong in the border area were moved to shelters, Yonhap News reported, without citing anyone.

The exchange of artillery fire comes after North Korea yesterday said it may conduct a “new form” of nuclear test, and before US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit to the region later this week. North Korea fired artillery shells at Yeonpyeong island in November 2010, killing two marines and prompting South Korea to return fire and mobilize fighter jets.

North Korea’s live-fire drills are a hostile act toward the South and escalate tensions along the western sea border, Defense Ministry spokesman Wi said earlier today. The military is ready for any possible provocation, Wi said.

North Korea has fired at least 86 rockets since Feb. 27 prior to today’s drills, including ballistic missiles banned under United Nations resolutions. The country’s foreign ministry defended them as part of drills to respond to annual US-South Korean military exercises, 

according to a statement yesterday published by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim Jong Un’s government “is fully ready for next-stage steps which the enemy can hardly imagine in case the US considers them as a ‘provocation,’” the foreign ministry said in the statement. “It would not rule out a new form of nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence.”

North Korea’s warning came even as South Korean President Park Geun Hye proposed building closer links with the North to spur reunification in a speech on March 28, and last month the two nations held the first reunions in more than three years of families separated by the Korean War. The North rejected the South’s offer earlier this month to make family reunions regular.

South Korea sees no sign of an imminent nuclear test or long-range missile firing, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui Do said in a briefing earlier today. North Korea has conducted three atomic tests including in February last year.

Source : Jakartaglobe