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The two Koreas they exchanged warning fire today on its western maritime border, where Seoul has announced that it will carry out major maneuvers as a response, thus evidencing the significant increase in tension on the peninsula.
Seoul said it detected a North Korean merchant ship that crossed the call in the early hours of Monday Northern Limit Line (LLN), which serves to divide the territorial waters of the two neighbors in the yellow seaand that one of its patrol boats responded “by messages and warning fire.”
LOOK: North Korea fires artillery shells off its coast, reports South Korean Army
About 90 minutes later, the North fired from the mainland “ten projectiles of multiple rocket launchers” Sea considering that the patrol boat invaded North Korean waters.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the North’s projectiles fell in maritime areas next to the NLL that both countries delimited in a military agreement signed in 2018 in which they promised to avoid maneuvers and live-fire exercises in said areas.
LOOK: South Korea and the US announce large-scale air maneuvers at the end of October
For this reason, Seoul today insisted that today’s launches, like the artillery rounds that Pyongyang has fired last week, constitute a violation of said agreement and He called on the northern troops to “immediately cease the repeated provocations and hostile arguments, as they are acts that damage peace and stability.”
Charted by the US-led UN Command at the end of the Korean War in 1953the NLL is not recognized by Pyongyang and has been the scene of fighting that has left at least 40 dead on both sides in 1999, 2002 and 2010.
“LARGE SCALE” MANEUVERS
Hours after the scuffle in the yellow sea The South Korean Navy said that from today until October 27 it will carry out large-scale maneuvers precisely in this area.
Although the drill is actually part of the annual exercises Hogukalready announced last week, it is clear that the volume of assets that will be deployed around the western maritime border seeks to show an image of strength against Pyongyang, which last week fired artillery rounds in this area.
It is “a large-scale maritime exercise that works as preparation for enemy provocations” in which the South Korean Army, Air Force and Coast Guard also participate, in addition to US troops, according to the JCS.
Some 20 South Korean naval vessels, including frigates or destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile system, will participate in the exercises. Coast Guard vessels or Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighters and, on the US side, Apache helicopters or A-10 attack planes.
“The main exercise seeks rapid detection of enemy forces either by air or sea around the northwestern islands of the western coast and to execute a rapid response by special combat units,” added the JCS.
SIMILAR LEVELS TO 2017
Tension in the region is reaching levels similar to those of 2017 as a result of the recent increase in the frequency of projectile launches by North Korea -which recently carried out nine missile tests in 20 days, including the launch of one that flew over Japan- and the maneuvers with which Seoul and Washington are replicating as part of the so-called extended deterrence.
The expanded or extended deterrence is a commitment made last May by Washington with Seoul that consists of sending US strategic assets to the Korean peninsula in a “coordinated manner and when necessary” based on the actions of the northern regime.
To all this, we must add the possibility that Pyongyang decides to carry out a nuclear test, which would be the first since 2017.
North Korea, which has been completely isolated from the outside since the start of the pandemic and approved a weapons modernization plan in 2021, has refused to resume dialogue with the South or the US and, according to satellites, has been prepared for months to make a new atomic test in Punggye-ri (northeast of the country). EFE
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
