Pyongyang accuses Seoul of firing at DMZ post

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Pyongyang accuses Seoul of firing at DMZ post

As the silence continues about the cause of the explosion that sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, North Korea on Sunday accused the South of firing artillery shells in its direction inside the demilitarized zone.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that a group of South Korean soldiers entered the eastern section of the demilitarized zone - the heavily armed border that divides the two Koreas - around 2:07 p.m. and fired 90-millimeter recoilless guns toward a civil police post.

“Serious tension has been created inside the zone,” the report said. “This was a premeditated provocation by the South that was designed to deliberately aggravate the situation in the demilitarized zone.”

The South Korean military denied the report.

“The command and control post said there has been no such incident,” a high-ranking military official in Seoul said on condition of anonymity. “It is my understanding that an unidentified explosion was heard in the eastern part of the DMZ around that time, but there was no gunfight.”


By Jeong Yong-soo [smartpower@joongang.co.kr]
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