GIMPO, South Korea\u2015Visitors to a South Korean observatory that overlooks North Korea said on Tuesday that the appearance of artillery pieces with their barrels \u2060pointed south on the border was worrying, as tensions between the two countries intensify.<\/p>\n
The two Koreas have traded barbs and strengthened their postures along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating them since September, after a mine blast \u200cthere wounded three South Korean soldiers. \u2060South Korea has demanded that North Korea apologize, while Pyongyang \u200bhas accused Seoul of fabricating the incident.<\/p>\n
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea\u2019s leader, said last Thursday that Pyongyang would place loudspeakers that can blast anti-South Korean propaganda on standby along the entire border within days and had put unspecified new countermeasures on alert.<\/p>\n
On Friday, South Korean media photographed an armored vehicle in clear view near the frontier. By Monday, there were three with their gun barrels pointed south, according to a Reuters witness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d only seen on TV that North Korea had deployed 122-mm artillery, but seeing the area in person makes me realise just how real the danger is,\u201d Jang Gil-seong, an 83-year-old \u2060war veteran who fought in \u200bthe Vietnam \u200bWar, said outside the Aegibong observatory, which overlooks \u200cNorth Korea\u2019s Kaephung county from about 1.4 km away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really concerned about how much South Korea will \u200cneed to do to prepare for and respond to this threat in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DMZ remains a \u200bdraw for foreign and local tourists despite periodic flare-ups in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.<\/p>\n
Hannah Robbins, a 28-year-old tourist from Canada, said her tour group had \u2060only found out about the artillery pieces after their guide told them about the weapons at the observatory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a bit scared obviously,\u201d she said. \u201cThe tour guide was like \u2018don\u2019t worry, they \u2060won\u2019t shoot\u2019 but then it\u2019s a bit of a worry that we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Analysts identified the weapons as M-1981 122-mm self-propelled howitzers, an older North Korean artillery system believed to have entered service in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n
They have a maximum range of about 24 km (15 miles), putting areas such as the South Korean town of Gimpo where the observatory is located within reach, although they are less powerful than newer artillery systems, said Yang Uk, a military expert at Seoul\u2019s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would view this more as a display of firepower than a meaningful increase in combat capability,\u201d Yang said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that it \u2060was positioned where \u200bit can be easily seen suggests it was deployed to be noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s military also described the weapons as an older system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile North Korea has mentioned new weapons systems in \u200cits recent statements, we believe that this cannot be considered \u200bas such,\u201d Seoul\u2019s \u200bJoint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Jang Do-young told a briefing on Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GIMPO, South Korea\u2015Visitors to a South Korean observatory that overlooks North Korea said on Tuesday that the appearance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8768,99959,4,450,451,3471,159608,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-896200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-asahi-shimbun","tag-asia-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-japan","tag-korean-peninsula","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}