North Korea threatens to take 'military countermeasures' against South Korea's provocations

North Korea has accused South Korea of provocations as tensions flare in the peninsula following Pyongyang’s missile launches. Pyongyang also threatened to take “overwhelming” action should Seoul continue to provoke.

A spokesman for the North Korean People’s Army said Saturday that the North Korean military would take “overwhelming military countermeasures” on South Korea’s provocations. The warning follows South Korea’s live artillery fire that took place Friday last week, and Seoul said it was a legitimate exercise.

The KPA’s frontline units carried out artillery firing Friday as a warning to “repeated provocation by enemies in the front areas,” said the spokesman in a statement released by the North Korean state media outlet KCNA.

“In the future too, our army will never allow any provocation by the enemies escalating the military tension on the Korean peninsula but take thorough and overwhelming military countermeasures,” said the spokesman.

Aside from artillery firing of 500 shells, North Korea also flew its warplanes close to its border with South Korea Friday, resulting in South Korean forces scrambling their jets. Seoul also imposed its first sanctions on North Korea in five years, saying the moves violated the 2018 bilateral military pact that banned “hostile acts” in the border region.

The South Korean military started its annual Hoguk defense drills Monday. The drills aimed to boost their capability to respond to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats. The drills are expected to end on Saturday and mark the latest drills by the South Korean military in recent weeks, including joint exercises with the United States and Japan.

North Korea has regularly criticized the joint exercises between South Korea, the US, and Japan, calling the drills deliberate provocations.

In the Hoguk drills, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said some US forces would be joining the South Korean troops to focus on maintaining the readiness and improving the troops’ ability to carry out joint operations.

“The forces will conduct real-world day and night maneuvers simulated to counter North Korea’s nuclear, missile, and other various threats, so that they can master wartime and peacetime mission performance capabilities and enhance interoperability with some US forces,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.