North Korea may fire short-range missiles across its disputed sea border with South Korea to bolster its saber-rattling campaign against the Seoul government, media reports said yesterday.
Officials believe this is the likeliest form of provocation from Pyongyang, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper and Yonhap news agency reported.
The North, which is fiercely hostile to Seoul’s conservative government, announced last week it has scrapped all peace agreements with the South including one covering the Yellow Sea borderline.
PHOTO: AP
Its official media has repeatedly warned of a possible armed clash.
Pyongyang is also apparently preparing for a separate long-range missile test-launch, US and South Korean officials said this week. Washington has said any such launch would be “provocative.”
Chosun said Seoul security officials at a meeting last Saturday — the day the North scrapped its pacts — concluded that a missile launch over the Northern Limit Line (NLL) was the likeliest provocation.
The North refuses to recognize the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by UN forces after the 1950-1953 war. The area was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
“Pyongyang may use the logic that South Korean leaflets being sent to the North is on a par with North Korea firing missiles at the South,” Chosun quoted an official as saying.
Rights activists periodically use balloons to launch leaflets across the border fiercely criticizing the North’s regime.
They plan another launch to mark North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday on Feb. 16, and Chosun said the North could retaliate with some kind of military action.
The North used its west coast naval base on Chodo island to test-fire missiles into its own waters last October. The sea border is in range of Chodo.
Chosun quoted an unidentified intelligence officer as saying the North may not provoke a naval skirmish because the South’s navy is better-armed.
Yonhap said the apparent preparations for a long-range missile launch — in full view of satellite TV cameras — could be aimed at distracting attention from planned launches across the sea border.
“We are intensifying our monitoring of the west coast because we believe that is where North Korea could fire short-range missiles in a surprise move,” a defense official told the agency.
“Missiles could be launched near the NLL because that is the area North Korea wants to make a statement on,” said Paik Hak-soon of the Sejong Institute think tank.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese