DPRK conducts drill off west coast

SEOUL — The military units of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Sunday conducted a live-shell firing drill off its western coast, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Military units in charge of the southwest coastal defense mobilized 23 coastal artilleries and fired 88 live shots toward four areas in the southwest waters, said KCNA citing a statement by the General Staff of the Korean People's Army.

The Republic of Korea accused the DPRK of "repeated artillery fire", saying the bombardment posed "a threat to the peace on the Korean Peninsula".

The DPRK said the district for the naval live-shell firing drill was not related to the Military Demarcation Line in terms of (firing) direction and posed no intentional threat to the ROK, the statement said.

It said the drill was conducted according to a plan within the Korean People's Army's regular training system.

In an earlier statement released by the KCNA on Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said the DPRK detonated blasting powder simulating the sound of artillery fire, a move designed to observe the reactions of the ROK's military.

The ROK claimed the DPRK conducted artillery shelling northwest of Yeonpyeong Island on Saturday afternoon, and the shells dropped in the sea buffer zone north of the so-called "Northern Limit Line", or NLL, in the western waters off the Korean Peninsula.

ROK's Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed Kim's statement mocking the detection capabilities of its military as "low-grade" and "psychological warfare", according to a report by Yonhap News Agency on Sunday.

The two countries have long been bickering over the maritime boundary in the western waters off the peninsula. The ROK has set the sea border by designating the NLL, which the DPRK has never officially recognized.

Xinhua - Agencies