(CNN) -- North and South Korean artillery batteries
exchanged hundreds of shells across their western sea border Monday, a
day after North Korea warned it was preparing to test another nuclear
device.
About 100 of the 500
shells North Korea fired into the Yellow Sea strayed across the line
separating the two rivals' territorial waters, the semiofficial South
Korean news agency
Yonhap reported.
Yonhap quoted the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying the
South responded by firing about 300 shells into North Korean waters and
dispatching fighter jets to the boundary, known as the Northern Limit
Line.
North Korean offshore
firing appeared to have resumed after a lull, Yonhap reported, citing a
resident of Baekryong Island, which is close to the Northern Limit Line.
"Some (North Korean)
artillery fire landed in (the) southern part of Northern Limit Line but
in the water," a South Korean Ministry of Defense spokesman said. "We
counter-fired over the Northern Limit Line."
When asked what South
Korea fired back at, the defense spokesman said, "We are not shooting at
North Korea, just shooting into the sea."
The United States, South Korea's leading ally, condemned the North Korean shelling from the White House and the Pentagon.
Washington is working "in
close coordination" with South Korea and Japan, White House spokesman
Jay Carney said, calling on North Korea "to refrain from actions that
threaten regional peace and security."
And Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon, "The provocation that the
North Koreans have, once again, engaged in is dangerous, and it needs to
stop."
China, the North's main patron, also expressed concern.
"The temperature is
rising at present on the Korean Peninsula, and this worries us," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing. "We hope that
all sides can remain calm and exercise restraint."
Warning fax
The normally reclusive
North took the unusual step of informing its neighbor of live-fire
drills close in the heavily militarized western sea. Pyongyang sent a
fax early Monday demanding that the South "control" its vessels in seven areas of the waterway near the Northern Limit Line.
According to Wee
Yong-Sub, a vice spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, the
scheduled tests mark the first time -- in recent history, at least --
that the North has announced live-firing exercises above the maritime
border.
"We consider such
announcement as a hostile threat and so have activated crisis management
operation in case of (military) provocation," he said. "We stress that
we are fully prepared for all situations."
Victor Cha, a leading
Korea analyst, told CNN that the North may be "posturing" for attention
in hopes bringing Washington back to talks over its nuclear program --
or moving while the United States distracted by other global events.
"They could be learning
from Crimea that while the United States is distracted, the North
Koreans can try to change the playing field and maybe slant it in their
direction by pushing it back to talks while the United States is focused
on other issues," Cha said.
The two Koreans never
signed a peace agreement after the 1950-53 war that also pitted the
United States and China against each other. Cha called it a "clearly a
good thing" that Pyongyang notified the South of its military exercise.
But if Northern gunners ended up killing someone across the border,
"then we're in a pretty bad situation."
"They are on a hair
trigger, and because of the array of forces on the peninsula, you can
get an action-reaction dynamic that escalates fairly quickly," he said.
"That's something we want to avoid, of course."
Nuclear tests
North Korea said Sunday
that it "would not rule out" a new nuclear test as it defended its
recent mid-range missile launch that triggered international
condemnation.
"(We) would not rule out
a new form of a nuclear test aimed at strengthening our nuclear
deterrence," Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by
the state-run KCNA news agency. "The U.S. had better ponder over this
and stop acting rashly."
The statement did not
specify what North Korea meant by a "new form" of test, and Wee said
there are no immediate signs of nuclear tests being carried out by the
North.
Last week, Pyongyang
launched two medium-range ballistic missiles
into the sea off its east coast, violating United Nations resolutions
that prohibit Pyongyang from conducting such tests. The Security Council
condemned the move and is considering an "appropriate response," said
Luxembourg Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, the council's current president.
The military exercises
are the latest provocation by the North and come after a maritime
dispute last week was seemingly swiftly resolved. On Thursday, a
North Korean fishing boat was seized after an alleged incursion into South Korean waters and returned with its three crew members the following day.
And while North Korea often upsets its neighbors by firing various
rockets and
missiles into the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula, the country has at times engaged in more deadly military actions.
A multinational 2010
report indicated that the sinking of the South Korean navy warship
Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors in the Yellow Sea, was the result of a a
North Korean torpedo. Later that year, North Korean artillery attacks
on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea killed two South Korean marines
in what Yonhap called "the first direct artillery attack on South Korean
territory since the Korean War ended in an armistice" in 1953.
Source: CNN
