Tag: North Korea

In a Taiwan crisis I would be very surprised if the North Koreans did not launch provocations in support of their Chinese allies just to divert U.S. troops and attention to the peninsula:

Seoul “should be fully prepared” for North Korean provocations in the event of a crisis between China and Taiwan, South Korea’s chief diplomat said this week.

Foreign Minister Park Jin, speaking to lawmakers Monday at a briefing for the Foreign and Unification Committee, said North Korea may engage in provocative behavior and exacerbate a potential crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

“Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is very important for the peace and stability of our Korean Peninsula,” Park said. “Therefore, we would like to continue to work together with the U.S. while firmly maintaining the [South Korea]-U.S. alliance.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Once again this all an attempt by North Korea to create tension and justify provocations in an attempt to get Seoul to respond in a way that justifies their upcoming nuclear test:

The issue of propaganda loudspeakers along the border may re-emerge as an area of disagreement between South and North Korea, in the wake of Pyongyang’s claim that Seoul has resumed the use of loudspeaker broadcasts. 

Diplomatic observers say the loudspeaker issue could ratchet up tensions further on the Korean Peninsula.

On Monday, while accusing a South Korean naval ship of intruding in its waters, North Korea claimed that the South Korean military has been staging provocations recently, including loudspeaker broadcasts along the border. 

However, the Ministry of National Defense said it is no longer operating loudspeakers along the border. Later it added that the South Korean military had recently used a similar broadcasting device ― installed at guard posts ― to notify helicopters for mobilization in operations to put out wildfires or transport emergency patients, a defense official here said.

The loudspeaker issue has been a hot-button issue between South and North Korea, leading to many disputes over the decades. Both sides have deployed speakers to direct propaganda at one another, and the North Korean regime has on many occasions responded sensitively to the matter. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear that the Kim regime is daring President Yoon to cancel the Inter-Korean military agreement. If it gets cancelled the Kim regime could use this as an excuse to justify their long awaited nuclear test:

North Korea fired artillery rounds into a buffer zone with South Korea that is designed to reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday.

The North fired some 100 artillery rounds into the Yellow Sea from around 10 p.m. Tuesday and another 150 rounds into the East Sea from 11 p.m., according to the JCS.

The artillery shells fell into eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, which were established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tension.

“Firing artillery shells into the eastern and western buffer zones is a clear violation of the September 19 military agreement, and we strongly urge North Korea to immediately halt its actions as North Korea’s continued provocations are actions that undermine peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the international community,” it said in a released statement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

That is one of the theories being bounced around on why North Korea is conducting so many missile tests and other drills in recent weeks:

“Rather, the recent moves are assumed to be aimed at gaining international attention for its seventh nuclear test with missile launches and other provocations, and showing its force to the world,” Go said. “Bragging about its nuclear forces seems to be the ultimate purpose of the recent moves.” 

Korea Times

Another theory is that North Korea is trying to test President Yoon and see if he will actually cancel the Inter-Korean military agreement as he has threatened to do:

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Friday’s provocations should be seen as its reaction against South Korea’s strengthened military posture and Seoul’s debates over discarding the military agreement so as to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear test.

“It was unusual that the North announced that it was reacting to a 10-hour long artillery drill,” Hong said. “It seems like the shelling was aimed at testing whether Seoul really thinks about breaking the military agreement. If the North dared to ignore the agreement, it can simply arm its soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone.”

You can read more at the link.

Why not abolish this pact when the ROK is the only one following it:

North Korea’s recent missile launches are widely viewed as a prelude to a seventh nuclear test and South Korea is exploring various response measures to deal with additional provocations. One of the measures being mentioned is scrapping the 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement which calls on the two Koreas to cease “hostile activities” against each other, including military exercises near the inter-Korean border.

Conservatives are urging Seoul to consider pulling out of the agreement, which they claim restrains South Korea’s defense capabilities by limiting military exercises and reconnaissance activities. 

“We should declare the scrapping of the military agreement if North Korea carries out a seventh nuclear weapon test,” Ruling People Power Party (PPP) interim leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk wrote on Facebook on Friday, a day after the North deployed 12 military aircraft for an air strike drill.

“If we destroy the pact, our military’s flight boundaries and firing exercise zones in the East and West seas will expand, bolstering our capabilities in surveilling North Korea and deterrence firepower,” Chung added. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest ratcheting up of tensions on the peninsula:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected an exercise of tactical nuclear operation units held in order to check and assess the “war deterrent and nuclear counterattack capability” in response to recent joint military trainings by South Korea and the United States, Pyongyang’s state media said Monday.

The drills were conducted from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9 while the South and the U.S. were staging a large-scale combined naval exercise in the waters near the peninsula involving the nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The North’s military staged “ballistic missile launching drills under the simulation of loading tactical nuclear warheads,” it reported.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but once again how many times and how many different ways does the Kim regime need to tell the international community that it is not denuclearizing?

I wonder if the North Korean Air Force used up their entire yearly training budget on this flight:

Twelve North Korean military aircraft flew in formation and presumably conducted a firing exercise Thursday, Seoul officials said, in apparent protest over recent military drills between South Korea and the United States.

The group of eight fighter jets and four bombers staged the formation flight north of the inter-Korean air boundary at around 2 p.m., and they were thought to have conducted air-to-surface firing drills, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Some 30 South Korean fighter jets were immediately deployed to the area in an “overwhelming” response to the flight, which is a move unseen over the past year, the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.