North Korea has sent troops to its southern border to restore guard posts that were dismantled under an agreement with South Korea in 2018, the South Korean military said on Monday.
In response to Pyongyang’s launch of its first spy satellite last week, Seoul has partially suspended an agreement between the two Koreas aimed at easing border tensions. The North abandoned it completely, warning that it would “never again be bound” by that agreement.
A South Korean military official told France-Presse news agency that Pyongyang recently sent armed personnel and equipment to restore guard posts.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that North Korean soldiers “have been rebuilding guard posts since Friday,” citing a military official, and that the 11 posts dismantled under the military agreement five years ago should be put back into use taken.
A photo released by the South Korean military shows four North Korean soldiers rebuilding a wooden post in the demilitarized zone separating the two countries.
The accelerated development of North Korea’s weapons programs has alarmed the South, with Seoul emphasizing “surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities” for the border as an “essential measure,” South Korean military officials said, to defend against the growing threats from North Korea. has nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang responded that it would deploy “more powerful forces and new types of military equipment to the region along the military demarcation line” that divides the peninsula.
After two failed attempts in May and August, Pyongyang received help from Moscow to put the satellite ‘Maligyong-1’ into orbit, according to Seoul intelligence services.
Experts say putting an operational spy satellite into orbit would streamline North Korea’s search for information, especially about its rival neighbor, giving the country access to crucial data ahead of a military conflict.
Source: DN
