SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean soldiers fired warning shots after North Korean troops breached the land border earlier this week, the South Korean military said Tuesday, amid growing animosities between the rivals over the North’s recent attack. balloon launches carrying trash.
Some North Korean soldiers who were engaged in unspecified work on the northern side of the border briefly crossed the military demarcation line on Sunday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
These North Korean soldiers immediately returned to their territory after the South Korean military fired warning shots and issued warning broadcasts, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It stated that North Korea did not carry out any other suspicious activities.
South Korea’s military assessed that North Korean soldiers did not appear to have intentionally crossed the border because the site is a wooded area and CDM signs were not clearly visible, said Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung Joon, to reporters.
The Koreas’ mine-strewn land border is the most heavily armed border in the world, with hundreds of thousands of combat troops facing each other. It is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
On Sunday, South Korea resumed anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts from its border loudspeakers in response to the North’s recent balloon launches carrying manure and trash across the border. South Korea said North Korea had installed its own border loudspeakers in response but had not yet turned them on.
