North Korea blames South’s 'provocative' artillery firing for Pyongyang's counter-shelling

Troops from the North Korean military have been ordered to conduct artillery shelling into the sea for the second consecutive day in response to the ongoing live-fire artillery drills by South Korea. The tit-for-tat response by the North initiated on Monday and saw the North Korean military launching up to 130 artillery rounds into the waters near its eastern and western sea borders with South Korea. The latest escalatory development came in the backdrop of the ongoing artillery shelling exercise by South Korea’s military that began on Monday and will culminate on Wednesday as per the reports. The exercise is being carried out near the inland border town of Cheorwon.

Pyongyang blamed the South for creating and worsening tensions in the region and asked Seoul to "put an immediate stop to their provocative military action in the area adjacent to the front," a statement by the North Korean army’s general staff said, reported Sputnik.

Seoul and Pyongyang trade blames amid regional tensions

Meanwhile, in response to the North’s conduct of artillery shelling, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff communicated a verbal warning to Pyongyang and urged it to abide by the 2018 inter-Korean agreement which aims at de-escalating tensions in border buffer regions. North Korea, on the other hand, promised to always respond to "enemy actions" with more serious military measures.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff revealed that the US and South Korean militaries were monitoring Pyongyang’s activities while bolstering their readiness to respond to any “potential contingency.”  

The latest string of tensions between the two Koreas comes days after Washington along with Seoul and Tokyo announced sanctions on North Korean institutions and individuals accused of illicit activities financing the country’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.  

The inter-Korean military agreement that established the buffer zones at the borders between the two Koreas is one of the few tangible remnants of the countries’ short-lived 2018 diplomacy. Moon Jae-in, the former President of South Korea, met North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 and also helped set up the dictator’s first summit with former US President Donald Trump.