‘Warning shots’ cause North Korean troops to withdraw over DMZ, South Korea says

Seoul’s military said Friday it fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the heavily fortified border in the third such invasion this month.

The nuclear-armed North has strengthened the border in recent months, adding tactical roads and laying more landmines, leading to “casualties” among its troops from accidental explosions, South Korea said.

On Thursday morning, “several North Korean soldiers working in the DMZ on the central front line crossed the Military Demarcation Line,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
“After our military’s warning broadcasts and warning shots, the North Korean soldiers retreated north,” they added.

Similar incidents occurred on June 9 and Tuesday this week, with Seoul’s military saying both invasions appeared to be accidental.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Kim Jong Un hosting Russian leader Vladmir Putin this week, signing a mutual defense agreement that shook in Seoul.
In response, the South — a major arms exporter — said it would “reconsider” a longstanding policy that prevented it from supplying weapons directly to Ukraine.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said:

While drawing attention to Putin’s pariah partnerships, the Kim regime recklessly endangers soldiers with hasty construction work on the inter-Korean border.
The work is likely aimed “as much at keeping their compatriots inside as at keeping the South Koreans out,” he said, but warned that “a lack of inter-Korean communication channels and confidence-building mechanisms promotes the danger of escalation in border areas.”

The two Koreas were also locked in a “balloon war,” with an activist in the South confirming Friday that he had floated more balloons with propaganda north, a move likely to trigger a response from Pyongyang, which has already sent more than a thousand balloons carrying garbage south.

Legally, Seoul cannot prevent activists from sending balloons across the border, following a 2023 court decision that it was an unjustifiable free speech infringement.

Activist Park Sang-hak, a former North Korean who defected and has been sending anti-regime leaflets north for years, said he had 20 balloons floating across the border Thursday, with propaganda as well as flash drives of K-pop music and K. – drama.

source:‘Warning shots’ cause North Korean troops to withdraw over DMZ, South Korea says – People’s Power News (volkskrag.co.za)