It seems that the animosities between North and South Korea are heating up once again….this has little to do with the recent missile fired over Japan that got them worried….this time it is in the waters off the peninsula.
North and South Korea exchanged warning shots Monday along their disputed western sea boundary—a scene of past bloodshed and naval battles—in a development that raises worry of possible clashes after North Korea’s recent barrage of weapons tests. South Korea’s navy broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to repel a North Korean merchant ship that violated the sea boundary at 3:42am, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. North Korea’s military said its coastal defense units responded by firing 10 rounds of artillery warning shots toward its territorial waters, where “naval enemy movement was detected.” It accused a South Korean naval ship of intruding into North Korean waters on the pretext of cracking down on an unidentified ship, the AP reports.
There were no reports of fighting, but the sea boundary off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast is a source of long-running animosities. The American-led UN command drew a boundary at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, but North Korea insists upon a boundary that encroaches deeply into waters controlled by the South. Among the deadly events that have happened in the area are the North’s shelling of a South Korean island and its alleged torpedoing of a South Korean navy ship, both in 2010. The two attacks killed 50 South Koreans. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean artillery firings Monday breached a 2018 inter-Korean accord on reducing military animosities and undermines stability on the Korean Peninsula. It said the North Korean shells didn’t land in South Korean waters but South Korea is boosting its military readiness.
Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said North Korea had likely intentionally plotted its ship incursion because it would be “unimaginable” for a North Korean merchant ship to cross the boundary that early in a day without the permission of the South’s military. The General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army accused South Korea of provoking animosities near their land border as well with its own artillery tests and propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts. South Korea has already confirmed it performed artillery firings last week as part of its regular military exercises, but denied that it resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts that both Koreas halted under the 2018 agreement.
Oh goody!
What will this cost the over-stretched American taxpayer to hep South Korea ‘protect’ itself from the aggression of the North?
Biden will promise them more aid, no doubt….like he always does.
This is such crap!
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
White men drawing lines on maps has been the cause of so many wars. Time to stop doing that.
Best wishes, Pete.
I agree…..artificial lines do no good chuq
Maybe we should just treat the North and South Korea thing the same way as we finally treated the Vietnam situation — get the hell out of there and maintain a hands off position and let the North come down and reclaim their autonomy over South Korea and be done with the whole damn mess. Once the communists from the North regain control of a unified Korea we can then take out trade agreements with them without spilling a drop of American blood.
By the way, that is my attitude about China and Taiwan too .. because China is going to end up controlling Taiwan anyway no matter how much the rest of the world bitches and whines about it.
Or the US spills its blood to protect their differences. chuq
As Pete said…artificial lines have done no good in this world. chuq