N. Korea showing it’s ready for both conflict and dialogue

Posted on : 2014-07-15 12:07 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
On the same day, the North agrees to meeting on Asian Games and fires off 100 rounds from a multiple rocket launcher
 of a multiple rocket launcher round fired by North Korea on July 14. The flames of the blast are encircled in red. (Yonhap News)
of a multiple rocket launcher round fired by North Korea on July 14. The flames of the blast are encircled in red. (Yonhap News)

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

Early on the morning of July 14, North Korea agreed to the South’s proposal to hold working-level talks for the Asian Games on July 17 at Panmunjeom. But around noon, North Korea carried out a show of force, shooting around 100 rounds from a multiple rocket launcher (MRL) into the East Sea around noon on the same day. North Korea could be trying to take the lead in the current situation, making overtures of peace on the one hand and ratcheting up tensions on the other.

“This morning, we received notification from North Korea that it was accepting our proposal to hold inter-Korean working level talks at the House of Peace on the south side of Panmunjeom on July 17. Our government will be preparing for the working-level talks through close deliberations with the organizing committee of the Asian Games in Incheon,” Unification Ministry spokesperson Kim Ui-do said during the regular press briefing on July 14. This was final confirmation of the schedule for the working-level talks between North and South Korea about the games, which the two sides been discussing since the beginning of July.

During the meeting, North and South Korea are expected to discuss a variety of issues, including how the North Korean athletes will come to South Korea, how many people can be on the North Korean cheerleading squad, and whether the South will provide the North with financial support.

The South Korean contingent will include Kwon Kyung-sang, secretary general of the Incheon Asian Games organizing committee, and two other people, while the North will also send three people, including the vice chair of the Joseon Olympic Committee.

But a few hours later - from 11:43 am to 12:15 pm on Monday - North Korea shot around 100 rounds from a multiple rocket launcher and coastal guns toward the East Sea from a position just a few hundred meters north of the DMZ in Goseong County, Gangwon Province. “The shells fired by the North Korean military landed in the water from 1-8km north of the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea,” said a source at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It is very unusual for North Korea to carry out firing practice from an MRL just to the north of the military demarcation line near the East Sea. “North Korea normally shoots missiles in the east and MRL in the west, but recently this has been reversed. The North appears to be cranking up its threat to South Korea by demonstrating the diversity of its operations and strategy,” said Kim Dong-yeop, research professor at the Institute for Far East Studies at Kyungnam University.

On July 9 and 13, North Korea launched scud-type missiles from Kaesong and Pyeongsan in Hwanghae Province, and on July 2 it fired an MRL into the East Sea from Wonsan in Gangwon Province.

When asked why North Korea is moving to increase the level of its threats at the same time that it offers proposals for dialogue, Yang Mu-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said, “I think North Korea is trying to show that it is prepared for both dialogue and conflict. We can infer that North Korea wants to use this to flaunt the fact that it is taking the lead in affairs on the Korean peninsula.”

“North Korea will go ahead with dialogue, but it is providing a separate response to military actions by South Korea and the US,” said Kim Chang-soo, head of research at the Korea National Strategy Institute.

On the morning of July 15, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that leader Kim Jong-un guided the live-fire exercise on the eastern frontline. “During the guidance of the live-shell firing exercise of the Korean People’s Army Unit 171, Kim oversaw the deployment of multiple launch rocket systems and issued an order to open fire,” the KNCA reported, apparently in regard to the July 14 firing exercises near the eastern part of the DMZ.

 

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