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 rising hostilities between the rivals over recent launch of waste-bearing balloons.
Some North Korean soldiers involved 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.
Those North Korean soldiers immediately returned to their territory after the South Korean military fired warning shots and sent out warning broadcasts, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. According to the report, North Korea has not engaged in any other suspicious activities.
South Korea’s military has determined that it appears the North Korean soldiers did not cross the border intentionally because the site is in a forested area and the MDL signs were not clearly visible there, spokesman Lee Sung Joon said. of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to reporters.
Korea’s mine-strewn land border is the most heavily armed 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 and not a peace treaty.
On Sunday, South Korea resumed anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts over its border loudspeakers in response to the North’s recent launches of balloons carrying manure and waste across the border. South Korea said North Korea has installed its own border speakers in response, but has not yet turned them on.
