\n<\/p>\n
Pyongyang claims South Korea\u2019s army fired more than 10 warning shots from a machinegun towards North Korean troops.<\/em><\/p>\n North Korea has accused South Korean forces of firing warning shots earlier this week at its soldiers who were part of a border reinforcement project, cautioning Seoul that its actions risked raising tensions to \u201cuncontrollable\u201d levels.<\/p>\n In a report published on Saturday, Pyongyang\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the North \u2018s Korean People\u2019s Army Vice Chief of the General Staff Ko Jong Chol as saying that the South should stop its \u201cpremeditated and deliberate\u201d provocation, which he described as \u201cinciting military conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n Calling the incident a \u201cserious provocation\u201d, Ko said the South Korean military fired more than 10 warning shots towards North Korean troops.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very serious prelude that would inevitably drive the situation in the southern border area, where a huge number of forces are stationing, in confrontation with each other, to the uncontrollable phase,\u201d Ko said.<\/p>\n The incident took place on Tuesday as North Korean soldiers were working to permanently seal the heavily fortified border that divides the peninsula, state media outlet KCNA said, citing a statement from Ko.<\/p>\n South Korea did not immediately comment on the reported encounter, and the country\u2019s official news agency, Yonhap, reported that it had no immediate confirmation from officials in Seoul on Pyongyang\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n The reported firing of warning shots is only the latest confrontation between North and South Korean forces, which have been at odds for decades over the heavily guarded border that divides both nations.<\/p>\n The last border clash between the archrivals was in early April when South Korea\u2019s military fired warning shots after a group of 10 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border.<\/p>\n Those troops were spotted in the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries, parts of which are heavily mined and overgrown.<\/p>\n In more recent months, South Korea has been taking steps to ease border tensions following the election of President Lee Jae-myung in June.<\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s army announced last October that it was moving to totally shut off the southern border, saying it had sent a telephone message to United States forces based in South Korea to \u201cprevent any misjudgement and accidental conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n Shortly after its announcement, it blew up sections of the unused but deeply symbolic cross-border roads and railway tracks that had once connected the North and South.<\/p>\n Ko, in the statement published by state media, warned that North Korea\u2019s army would retaliate to any interference with its efforts to permanently seal the border.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the act of restraining or obstructing the project unrelated to the military character persists, our army will regard it as deliberate military provocation and take corresponding countermeasure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Last year, North Korea sent thousands of rubbish-carrying balloons southwards, saying they were retaliation for anti-North Korean propaganda balloons sent by South Korean activists.<\/p>\n Later, Seoul turned on border loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in six years, which included K-pop tunes and international news. Pyongyang responded by blaring strange sounds along the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.<\/p>\n Seoul has since turned off the loudspeaker broadcasts following orders from newly elected President Lee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pyongyang claims South Korea\u2019s army fired more than 10 warning shots from a machinegun towards North Korean troops. North Korea has accused South Korean forces of firing warning shots earlier this week at its soldiers who were part of a border reinforcement project, cautioning Seoul that its actions risked raising tensions to \u201cuncontrollable\u201d levels. In<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6536,3827,5857,1873,1771,685,150,242,10418,122,3533,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-17289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-accuses","9":"tag-border","10":"tag-disputes","11":"tag-firing","12":"tag-korea","13":"tag-korean","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-north","16":"tag-shots","17":"tag-south","18":"tag-troops","19":"tag-warning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Corresponding countermeasure\u2019<\/h2>\n