(Reuters)
SEOUL, Oct 26 – Tensions between North Korea and South Korea are running high this week after Pyongyang sent a letter to the UN Security Council, repeating accusations that Seoul fabricated a September landmine incident, and after a North Korean howitzer was spotted close to the border.
A Reuters witness at an observatory in South Korea overlooking the heavily armed border on Monday confirmed the presence of a North Korean artillery piece positioned in clear view near the frontier.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency on Sunday identified the weapon as a self-propelled 122-mm howitzer, saying its deployment near the border marked a rare public display of such artillery.
Reuters also observed three North Korean armored vehicles with their gun barrels pointed south, as well as about 20 to 30 North Korean soldiers carrying out fencing work inside the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).
“It is highly unusual (for North Korea) to expose its self-propelled artillery so conspicuously,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
“By deliberately displaying it, North Korea is signalling through action, not words, that it intends to enforce its border policy through force rather than dialogue or negotiation.”
It is also warning South Korea to exercise caution about escalating border friction, with the intention to prevent an accidental clash, he added.
North Korean state media KCNA reported that in the letter sent on Sunday, the country’s UN representative said Seoul was using the landmine incident to depict Pyongyang’s border construction as a military incursion.
North Korea warned in the letter that violations of its sovereignty could trigger self-defence measures and that South Korea would be “wholly accountable for all the ensuing consequences.”
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