hankyoreh

North Korea fired dozens of coastal artillery shells at two sites in the waters north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) near Baengnyeong Island in the West Sea during two sessions on Wednesday morning and afternoon. Immediately following North Korea’s artillery fire, South Korean marines stationed at the island fired warning shots into the air toward the incoming shells.

In a report released Wednesday afternoon through North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North Korea People’s Army General Staff said, “Live firing drills by our People’s Army units in the waters of the West Sea front will continue in the future as part of an annual training exercise.” Previously, North Korea declared two sites in the waters near Baengnyeong Island and Daecheong Island in the West Sea as “no-sail zones” from Jan. 25 to Mar. 29. North Korea has held coastal artillery firing exercises in the West Sea on a yearly basis, but Wednesday’s incident marks the first time such artillery has been fired in the area around the NLL.

The conclusion from experts is that the incident was prompted by a multipurpose strategy of applying pressure to the Lee Myung-bak administration, which has been reluctant to engage in measures to improve inter-Korean relations, and to highlight the need for peace negotiations.

Regarding North Korea’s intentions, experts are primarily interpreting the move as a low-intensity “North Korean-style” pressure tactic in response to the “speed modulation” and “neglect tactics” of the Lee administration’s North Korea policy. Since the second half of 2009, North Korea has waged an active “dialogue offensive” toward South Korea, but the Lee administration has responded reluctantly to the idea of inter-Korean dialogue, either linking it strongly with the North Korea nuclear issue or attaching difficult conditions.

North Korea’s response also began to change when news broke of a reported South Korean contingency plan in the event of a North Korean upheaval scenario and Defense Minister Kim Tae-young’s remarks about a preemptive strike in the event of signs of a North Korean nuclear attack. This new attitude was evident in a statement by a spokesman for North Korea’s National Defense Commission on Jan. 15 declaring a “holy war of retaliation” and a report on Jan. 17 of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s observation of the joint army, navy and air force training by the People’s Army. Kim Yeon-cheol, head of the Hankyoreh Peace Research Institute, said, “This coastal artillery firing by North Korea shows that its threats are not ‘mere words,’ but could lead to serious actions in the future, and as such it appears to have been calculated to raise the pressure effects.”

Observers say it is difficult to conclude based solely on this show of force that there has been a fundamental change in North Korea’s emphasis on improving inter-Korean relations, which was reaffirmed in the second half of 2009 and in joint New Year’s editorial by the country’s three main newspapers. A foreign affairs expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Since the dialogue offensive alone was not working, North Korea attempted to increase the presence of inter-Korean relations in the South Korean Lee administration’s overall governance using low-intensity pressure tactics.”

In addition, analysts are also interpreting the North Korean artillery fire as an attempt to highlight the importance of the NLL issue and link it to the necessity of signing a peace agreement. On Nov. 10, 2009, a North Korean vessel sustained considerable damage during the third occurrence of hostilities in the West Sea. North Korea subsequently issued a naval command representative’s statement on Dec. 21 announcing that it was declaring designated waters around the NLL in the West sea as a “peacetime marine firing zone.” The North Korean People’s Army General Staff also issued a report on Wednesday in which it stated, “In the waters off the front of the west coast of Joseon (Korea), there is only one marine military demarcation line that we recognize.” His last remark has been interpreted to mean that North Korea recognizes only one line, and it is not the NLL.

The armistice agreement signed in 1953 after the Korean War did not clearly establish a marine boundary in the West Sea, and for this reason it has functioned as an Achilles heel for the establishment of a Korean Peninsula peace regime, with three incidents of hostilities taking place around the West Sea NLL. Observers say that North Korea is sending a message that a Korean Peninsula peace regime is impossible without the prior establishment of peace in the West Sea. A Ministry of National Defense official said, “It appears North Korea is trying to send a message to the U.S. that discussions of a peace regime are urgently needed by highlighting the fact that the NLL is a disputed area and forming tensions.”

Experts are predicting that North Korea will find it difficult employing high-intensity tactics for the time being, in light of its discussions with the U.S. and relations with China. In other words, by firing coastal artillery only in the North Korean area of the NLL, it is providing evidence that it does not want a rapid flaring of tensions. However, observers say that North Korea’s “limited show of force” still presents the potential to flare into an unforeseen clash. In particular, it is impossible to completely rule out the chance of localized inter-Korean hostilities if North Korea fires artillery in the waters to the south of the NLL, since South Korea’s government has declared that it will respond to the positioning of North Korean coastal artillery with attacks by its own marine corps coastal artillery or air force fighter planes.

Meanwhile, an incident took place in the waters of the West Sea NLL near Baengnyeong Island in Incheon’s Ongjin-gun on Wednesday morning when cargo vessels had to turn around at one point due to artillery fire by the North Korea and South Korean militaries, but the situation soon returned to normal.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]