S.Korea says DPRK stages artillery-firing drill for two days near sea border
Xinhua, May 14, 2015 Adjust font size:
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) carried out artillery-firing exercises for two straight days Thursday near the disputed maritime border with South Korea.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff was quoted by local media as saying that the DPRK started the live-fire exercise from 7:10 p. m. local time (1010 GMT). No shell landed in South Korea's territorial waters.
The firing exercise came after the DPRK staged the similar live- fire drill Wednesday night for about an hour and a half from 9 p.m. local time. Some 130 rounds of artillery shells were fired the previous day.
According to the reports, the exercise was conducted in waters about 10-12 km north of South Korean border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong, which the DPRK designated as artillery fire areas.
The areas are located just 1 km north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which Pyongyang has denied as an official inter-Korean sea border as the NLL was drawn by U.S.-led forces after the three- year Korean War ended in 1953.
On Wednesday, the DPRK notified South Korea of its plan to stage live-fire drills for three days through Friday.
The Korean People's Army (KPA)'s southwestern front command sent such notice via military communications line in the Yellow Sea to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Endi