A “small provocation” or an accidental incursion? North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border with South Korea on Sunday, whose soldiers fired warning shots to make them retreat, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced on Tuesday.
“After our army broadcast warning messages and fired warning shots, they withdrew towards the north,” he said. And added: “Apart from the immediate retreat of North Korean soldiers after our shots, no unusual movement was observed.”
“The dividing line was not clearly visible”
Since 1953, the two countries have been separated by a demilitarized zone (DMZ), 4 kilometers wide and heavily fortified. But the demarcation line itself, located in the middle of this area, is only marked by simple signs planted every 100 meters and which have not been replaced in more than 70 years. Soldiers from both camps regularly patrol this area, which sometimes gives rise to skirmishes.
According to the JCS spokesperson, it was likely an accidental incursion. “The situation that day was that the DMZ was overgrown and the marking of the military demarcation line was not clearly visible,” he told reporters.
A “little provocation”
The North Korean soldiers “were moving through the bushes, and we were watching them before they even approached the demarcation line,” he continued. “We believe they had no intention of invading, as they immediately retreated north after the warning messages and shots.” An opinion that Ahn Chan-il, a former defector who directs the World Institute for North Korean Studies, does not share.
Sunday’s incursion could be a “small provocation” intended to test the South Korean military, he said. “It could also be part of preparations for what Kim Yo Jong has described as new countermeasures against the South,” he said, referring to Kim Jong Un’s sister and chief spokesperson for the regime. North Korean.
Feces versus leaflets
Pyongyang has in recent weeks innovated its methods to annoy Seoul by sending hundreds of balloons weighted with trash such as cigarette butts, toilet paper, and even animal excrement to South Korea.
The North Korean regime intends to respond to the sending towards the north by defector associations, also by balloon, of leaflets hostile to leader Kim Jong Un and his family, dollars in small denominations and USB keys containing k -pop and South Korean series. Seoul cannot legally prevent these shipments.
