SEOUL – South Korean troops fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border this week, Seoul’s military said on June 11, with tensions high over Pyongyang’s trash-carrying balloons and the South’s retaliatory loudspeaker campaign.
The June 9 incursion over the line separating the two militaries took place in an overgrown area of the heavily fortified border area and was most likely accidental, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
Relations between the two Koreas – which remain technically at war as the 1950 to 1953 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty – are at one of their lowest points in years.
“Some North Korean soldiers working within the DMZ (demilitarised zone) on the central front briefly crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL),” the JCS said in a statement, referring to the line of control between the two Koreas.
“After our military issued warning broadcasts and warning shots, they retreated northwards,” it said, adding that there had been “no unusual movements observed” subsequently.
About 20 North Korean soldiers crossed the border, according to the JCS.
The incursion was most likely accidental, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung-joon told reporters on June 11.
“The situation at that time was that the DMZ was now overgrown with trees and the MDL mark was not clearly visible,” Mr Lee said.
“There was no road, and the (North Korean soldiers) were moving through the bushes, and we were observing (them) even before they got close to the MDL,” Mr Lee said. “We believe that they did not intend to invade, considering that they immediately moved northwards after the warning broadcasts and warning shots.”
In recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons laden with trash such as cigarette butts and toilet paper southwards, in what it calls retaliation for balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda sent north by activists.
In response, the South Korean government has suspended a 2018 tension-reducing military deal and restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border, infuriating the North, which warned that Seoul was creating “a new crisis”.
Seoul’s military said on June 10 that North Korea may also be re-installing its own loudspeakers along the border, a tactic it has used since the 1960s, typically broadcasting praise of the ruling Kim family. It suspended the campaign in 2018 as ties briefly warmed.
Seoul’s spy agency told AFP on June 11 it had also detected signs that Pyongyang was demolishing sections of the inter-Korean railway.
‘Small provocation’
The incursion of the North Korean soldiers could be a “small provocation” to test the waters ahead of a bigger move, Dr Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.
“It can also be seen as part of (leader Kim Jong Un’s sister and chief regime spokeswoman) Kim Yo Jong’s preparation for what she described as ‘new countermeasures’,” he added.
Pyongyang has previously threatened artillery strikes against the loudspeaker units.
South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcast on June 9 included news segments about Seoul’s decision to suspend the 2018 military agreement along with a report on the global sales performance of Samsung Electronics smartphones, according to the Yonhap news agency.
It also played songs by K-pop sensation BTS, Yonhap said.
Apart from anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets, North Korea is also extremely sensitive about its people gaining access to South Korea’s flourishing popular culture.
According to a United Nations report, Pyongyang enacted a law in 2020 to punish anyone possessing or distributing a large amount of South Korean media content with life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
Experts have warned that the decision to jettison the 2018 deal and restart loudspeaker broadcasts could have serious implications, as previous propaganda tit-for-tat actions have had real-world consequences for inter-Korea relations.
In 2020, Pyongyang, blaming anti-North leaflets, unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with the South and blew up an inter-Korea liaison office on its side of the border. AFP
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2024-06-11 02:15:15Z
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