According to South Korea's military, warning shots were fired after a North Korean warship breached the maritime boundary between the two nations early on Monday.
The North's official KCNA said in response to the South's warning shots, North Korea launched 10 artillery projectiles.
According to a spokesman for the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army, the North Korean rocket launchers were fired at roughly 5.15 am local time on Monday after the South Korean military fired warning shots at about 3:50 a.m.
Tension Escalates Between North and South Korea
The Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas, was crossed by a North Korean commerce ship, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the South.
"The Korean People's Army General Staff... instructed to harshly send back the enemy's vessel with 10 rocket launcher shots, the North Korean official said in a statement reported by the KCNA.
North Korea has conducted a number of nuclear tests in recent weeks in reaction to what it views as provocative military exercises between South Korea and the US. North Korea has launched 15 missiles and many artillery rounds into the ocean since September 25, as per The Independent.
Regular military exercises between Seoul and Washington keep both sides ready for any North Korean assault. Although the allies claim that their exercises are defensive in character, North Korea sees them as a practice for an invasion.
It would be "unimaginable" for a North Korean merchant ship to cross the border so early in the day without approval from the North's military, according to analyst Cheong Seong-Chang of the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.
Cheong said recent missile tests by North Korea, in which the country claimed to have simulated the use of tactical nuclear weapons to attack South Korean and American targets, have given the country more assurance. He pointed out Pyongyang would also be aware of Washington's tense relations with China and Russia, which make it more challenging for the US to secure their assistance on the North Korean issue.
According to Cheong, "the South Korean military has to undertake thorough preparations to prevent new incidents from developing on the West Sea and prevent them from leading to the North Korean military initiating artillery bombardments" on a South Korean border island.
The North Korean artillery firings on Monday, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, violated a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on lowering military hostilities and jeopardize the stability of the Korean Peninsula. It stated that although South Korea is increasing its military preparation, North Korean shells did not land in South Korean seas, NBC San Diego reported.
The Korean People's Army's General Staff claimed South Korea with inciting hostilities along their shared land border with its own artillery tests and propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts. Although South Korea has previously acknowledged that it conducted artillery drills last week as part of routine military training, it has denied that it resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts that both Koreas agreed to stop in 2018.
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US and South Korea to Conduct Joint Air Force Exercises
The conflict on Monday occurred close to the ill-defined maritime border off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, which has seen a number of brutal naval battles between the two Koreas in recent years, including two attacks in 2010 that resulted in the deaths of 50 South Koreans.
Since the start of the year, Pyongyang has conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests, most notably launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, which prompted a countrywide call to safety. It has just conducted another round of weapons tests, launching 15 missiles since September 25 in what it claims is retaliation for provocative military exercises by South Korea and the US.
Regular combined military exercises between Seoul and Washington were scaled back in 2018 due to the 2019 breakdown of inter-Korean peace negotiations. For the first time in five years, the US Navy dispatched an aircraft carrier to conduct maneuvers with the South Korean Navy in September.
A total of 240 warplanes, including F-35 fighters flown by both countries, will participate in joint air force exercises between South Korea and the US next week. The Pentagon also said last week that it had sent B-1B heavy bombers to Guam to thwart "possible provocations," according to The Telegraph via MSN.
Related Article: North Korea Fires Artillery Shells as Warning to South's Military Drills Amid Increasing Hostilities
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