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A unit of the ROK Marines fires a K9 self-propelled howitzer during live-fire drills in operational areas in the Northwest Islands in the Yellow Sea on June 26, 2024. (courtesy of the ROK Marine Corps Headquarters)

South Korea carried out official maritime firing exercises around the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea on Wednesday for the first time since August 2017. These were the first such exercises to be held in the vicinity of the five Northwest Islands that lie in proximity to North Korea since South Korea fully suspended the 2018 buffer-creating military pact it had signed with the North.

South Korea’s Northwest Islands Defense Command announced that the Sixth Marine Brigade (on Baengnyeong Island) and the Yeonpyeong Unit (on Yeonpyeong Island) carried out maritime firing exercises in each unit’s operational area on Wednesday. The exercises began at 2:05 pm and lasted for about an hour.  

The units fired a total of 290 rounds of munitions from K9 self-propelled howitzers and the Chunmoo multiple launch rocket system — as well as the Spike missile, which is capable of precision strikes on North Korean coastal guns in Hwanghae Province — at virtual maritime targets to the southwest.

South Korean Marines launch a Spike missile during live-fire drills on Yeonpyeong Island near the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea on June 26, 2024. (Yonhap)

On Wednesday night, North Korea floated over another batch of balloons carrying garbage.

In response to trash balloons being flown over the border, the South Korean government under President Yoon Suk-yeol fully suspended the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement on June 4 and announced the resumption of firing and mobility exercises near the Military Demarcation Line on land and near the Northwest Islands and the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea.

After North Korea carried out a maritime firing drill to the north of the Northern Limit Line on the morning of Jan. 5, Marine Corps units on Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands fired shots south of the Northern Limit Line with K9 self-propelled howitzers and tank guns. Since the ban on maritime gunnery exercises near the Northern Limit Line was still in force at the time, the military authorities characterized the shots as return fire in self-defense, rather than firing drills.

The resumption of maritime firing drills near Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong islands means that the area around the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea has again become a tinderbox for the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean Marines use a Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher during live-fire drills in operational areas in the Northwest Islands in the Yellow Sea on June 26, 2024. (courtesy of the ROK Marine Corps Headquarters)

South Korea argues that the maritime firing exercises, in which shells fall in the sea near the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, are “ordinary exercises conducted south of the Northern Limit Line.” But North Korea, which does not recognize the Northern Limit Line, considers them an invasion of its territory. North Korea’s bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23, 2010, was triggered by maritime firing exercises by K9 howitzers with the Yeonpyeong Unit.

Residents of Yeonpyeong Island spent a long time huddled in an air raid shelter for the duration of the firing exercises on Wednesday, worried about the possibility of war breaking out.

The Northwest Islands Defense Command described Wednesday’s firing drills as yearly defense exercises in compliance with the rules of the armistice, with observers from the UN Command Military Armistice Commission on hand. A spokesperson said the drills had been conducted according to standard procedure, which included issuing an advance warning to ships in the area. The spokesperson also said that public safety measures had been taken, such as notifying residents about the exercises through a text message and a loudspeaker broadcast on the day they were held.

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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