North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong denied Seoul's claims that Pyongyang fired dozens of artillery rounds near their disputed border. South Korean military earlier said that North Korea fired over 60 artillery rounds near Yeonpyeong Island, a day after both sides staged live-fire drills in the same area which is near their contested maritime border.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the shells landed in a buffer zone which was created under a 2018 tension-reducing deal. It fell apart in November after North Korea launched a spy satellite.
But Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, “Our military did not fire a single shell into the water area.”
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North Korea had detonated explosives simulating the sound of gunfire 60 times and "watched the reaction" of the South Korean forces, she said, adding, "The result was exactly as we expected. They misjudged the sound of explosives as gunfire, assumed it was an artillery fire provocation, and shamelessly made up a lie."
Mocking South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said, “In the future, they will misjudge even the rumbling sound of thunder in the northern sky as artillery fire from our military.”
{{/usCountry}}Mocking South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said, “In the future, they will misjudge even the rumbling sound of thunder in the northern sky as artillery fire from our military.”
{{/usCountry}}This comes as residents on two South Korean islands near the border were ordered to evacuate. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades after leader Kim Jong Un enshrined his country's status as a nuclear power into the constitution. North Korea also test-fired several advanced ICBMs last year as Kim Jong Un threatened a nuclear attack on the South and called for a build-up of his country's military as conflict could “break out any time”, he said.