South conducts first live-fire artillery drills near DMZ in six years
![A Spike anti-tank missile is fired from Yeonpyeong Island during the South Korean Marine Corps' first live-fire artillery exercise in seven years near the Northern Limit Line on June 26. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/07/03/b29b1c1f-b890-4e9e-b393-2875a4824400.jpg)
A Spike anti-tank missile is fired from Yeonpyeong Island during the South Korean Marine Corps' first live-fire artillery exercise in seven years near the Northern Limit Line on June 26. [YONHAP]
South Korea conducted live-fire exercises at artillery ranges near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on Tuesday for the first time in six years following its decision to suspend participation in an inter-Korean military pact that banned such activities.
According to the South Korean Army, soldiers fired approximately 140 live artillery rounds from K-9 and K105A1 self-propelled howitzers at front-line ranges located within 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of the military demarcation line inside the DMZ, which divides the peninsula.
The Army said the firing drills were “the first such exercise to be conducted on land after exercises were normalized following the government’s complete suspension of the September 19 Military Agreement,” referring to the inter-Korean military accord signed in 2018.
The Army also said the drills were “focused on bolstering artillery readiness and response capabilities should enemy provocations occur” and added that it would “regularly conduct artillery drills and training maneuvers in border areas in the future.”
The drills took place less than a week after the Marines held their first live-fire artillery exercise on islands near the western inter-Korean maritime border in seven years.
Both drills took place after South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced it considered itself no longer bound by a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement after the government declared the suspension of the accord in response to multiple actions by Pyongyang that Seoul has condemned as provocations.
Under the terms of the 2018 agreement, both Koreas were prohibited from conducting live artillery drills or outdoor exercises involving units larger than a single regiment within a buffer zone that extended 5 kilometers from either side of the military demarcation line (MDL) that divides the peninsula.
The accord also banned warships or coastal guns from firing live artillery shells along the inter-Korean boundaries in the Yellow Sea and East Sea and prohibited fixed-wing aircraft from conducting tactical drills involving air-to-surface missiles within the buffer zone.
South Korea’s decision to suspend participation in the inter-Korean pact came soon after the North jammed GPS signals along the inter-Korean border in late May and flew hundreds of trash-laden balloons across the DMZ, which Seoul has criticized as violations of the armistice that ended active hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.
The pact, which was signed by defense ministers from both Koreas during the September 2018 summit between then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was already on tenterhooks after the North launched its first spy satellite into orbit in November last year.
In response, the South Korean government announced it would suspend provisions of the accord that barred reconnaissance and surveillance activities along the inter-Korean border.
South Korea also re-installed loudspeakers near the inter-Korean border and resumed propaganda broadcasts in response to the North’s trash-laden balloons.
Loudspeakers installed along the inter-Korean border broadcast K-pop songs and anti-North speeches denouncing leader Kim Jong-un and praising democracy. Observers believe that the broadcasts are a major irritant to the North Korean regime, which tightly controls information inflows and has threatened in the past to blow up loudspeakers on the southern side of the DMZ.
The speakers were dismantled in 2018 during the liberal Moon Jae-in administration in line with the inter-Korean Panmunjom Declaration of April 2018, which called for the two Koreas “to stop all the hostile acts, including the loudspeaker broadcasting and scattering of leaflets in the areas along the military demarcation line.”
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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