North fires big guns, bigger insults at unification minister

In this photo released by Pyongyang's state-run Rodong Sinmun, the North Korean military conducts a live artillery firing drill on Sept. 6. [NEWS1]

North Korea's military fired over one hundred artillery shells into waters off its eastern and western coasts on Monday as its state-run propaganda outlet launched a verbal salvo against South Korea's top official on inter-Korean affairs.

"Beginning around 2:59 p.m. today, the South Korean military detected 130 artillery shots believed to have been fired into the East Sea and Yellow Sea from Kumgang County, Kangwon Province and Jangsan Cape in Hwanghae Province,” Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told reporters in a text message.

The shells landed in a buffer zone north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean maritime boundary, according to the JCS.

The JCS said the South Korean military relayed several warnings to the North regarding the artillery barrage in the maritime buffer zones, calling it a “violation of the September 19 military agreement” and demanding an “immediate suspension of provocations.”

Maritime buffer zones were set up under the 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement, which called for the de-escalation of cross-border tensions and was intended to reduce the risk of military clashes at sea.

The JCS added that the South Korean military “is bolstering its readiness in case an emergency arises while tracking and monitoring related trends in close cooperation with the United States.”

The North Korean artillery barrage came the same day that North Korean propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri carried a tirade of insults directed at South Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se for urging the North to return to dialogue.

During his first visit to the Panmunjom Joint Security Area (JSA) on Nov. 29, Kwon said that the South does not harbor hostility towards the North, and that it will not seek “unification through absorption,” or bringing the territory controlled by Pyongyang under Seoul’s control. He also said South Korea would not “tolerate” the North’s “nuclear threats or armed provocations.”

The remarks were not well-received by the North

“Kwon visited [the JSA] that day with fear in his eyes and recited words he had memorized in advance, such as ‘dialogue’ and ‘sincerity’ and shrilled that [the South] would not tolerate the North’s ‘nuclear threat’ and ‘provocations,’” Uriminzokkiri said, adding that the unification minister “dared to mention our sacred dignity and political system when he babbled about ‘regime security,’ ‘future,’ and ‘fundamental concerns.’”

During his visit, the unification minister toured several historic sites in the JSA, including the Bridge of No Return, where Korean War prisoners were exchanged between April and September 1953; United Nations Command checkpoints no. 3 and 4; and the site of the 1976 axe murder incident, when North Korean soldiers killed two U.S. Army officers sent to prune a tree obscuring the line of sight between the two posts.

The final stops on the minister's tour of the JSA was the commemorative stone and a tree planted by former South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their April 2018 summit, as well as the blue bridge and open-air platform purpose-built for the two leaders’ private chat during their meeting.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]