North Korea blew up sections of roads in its own territory that are part of links once used to connect the southern part of the peninsula with the north, in a show of defiance after it accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang.
North Korea detonated bombs north of its eastern and western borders at around noon yesterday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
South Korea’s military later fired off warning shots within its border, said the JCS, which also confirmed there were no reports of damage in South Korea from the detonations.
Photo: EPA-EFE
A video released by the South Korean military showed smoke billowing from roads following an explosion, with North Korean troops monitoring the operations nearby.
South Korea strongly condemned the move, calling it an “extremely abnormal” act that violates inter-Korean agreements. The roads were built as a cooperative project between the two Koreas, with Seoul providing materials and equipment for construction.
While the incidents reflect an escalation of tensions on the peninsula, they do not signal the imminent start of a military conflict, analysts said. North Korea has tended in the past to engage in provocative acts in the runup to major political events overseas, including US elections.
“The explosion is a symbolic move to highlight that Pyongyang now sees South Korea as an enemy state,” said Park Won-gon, a professor at South Korea’s Ewha Womans University, specializing in international relations. “It was not a direct provocation to South Korea, so Seoul is unlikely to overreact to it to further escalate tensions.”
Hours after the explosions, South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province declared cities and surrounding areas that border North Korea a risk zone, and banned sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime has long criticized the campaign as a threat to its sovereignty.
“It is a serious situation where the lives and safety of the residents in the border regions are threatened due to the rapidly deteriorating inter-Korean relations,” the province said in a statement. “We see sending anti-North Korea leaflets as an extremely dangerous act that could cause a military conflict.”
Kin has been pushing to sunder ties with his neighbor, ruling out the possibility of a peaceful unification. On Monday, he held a meeting on defense and security to discuss military action plans in response to alleged drone flights, state media Korean Central News Agency said.
North Korea has bristled at what it claimed to be the infiltration of drones in its airspace by Seoul and ordered artillery units along the border to “get fully ready to open fire” in an immediate strike if necessary.
South Korea has not said whether it sent drones across the border.
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