North Korea accused South Korea on Friday of using drones to drop a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets over Pyongyang.
North Korea is preparing to blow up highways that traverse the heavily militarized border with South Korea, Seoul warned on Monday, amid a growing verbal battle after the North accused its rival of deploying drones over Pyongyang.
North Korean forces were working under camouflage on roads on their side of the border along the west and east coastlines, perhaps preparing to blow them up as early as Monday, according to South Korea’s military spokesperson.
North Korea’s Army said last week that it will fully shut highways and trains connecting to South Korea and strengthen locations on its side of the border, according to official media KCNA.
Separately, North Korea accused South Korea on Friday of using drones to disperse a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets above Pyongyang, calling it a political and military provocation that might spark armed confrontation.
On Monday, Lee Sung-jun, a spokesperson for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment on whether the drones were flown by the South Korean military or citizens.
North Korea issued more warnings over the weekend, warning of “horrible disaster” if South Korean drones were caught flying over Pyongyang again. On Sunday, it said that it had placed eight fully equipped artillery battalions near the border “on standby to open fire.”
South Korea’s military has stated that it refuses to answer queries about the drones because doing so would expose Pyongyang’s technique of fabricating explanations for provocations.
According to Lee, South Korea has tried to strengthen its anti-drone defenses since 2022, when five North Korean drones invaded its airspace and hovered above the capital Seoul for several hours.
Lee Kyoung-haing, a specialist in military drone operations at Jungwon University, said civilians would have no problem obtaining drones with round-trip ranges of 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the South to Pyongyang, carrying modest payloads such as leaflets.
North Korea’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday that the drones, which were detected above Pyongyang three days earlier this month, required a specific launcher or runway and could not be launched by a civilian group.
The 1950-53 conflict between the two Koreas concluded in an armistice rather than a peace treaty; hence, the two Koreas remain formally at war.
The cross-border linkages are leftovers of moments of reconciliation between the nations, including a 2018 meeting in which the leaders announced that there would be no more conflict and that a new era of peace had begun.
North Korea has reinstalled heavy weaponry into the Demilitarized Zone border barrier and reopened guard stations after the two sides deemed a 2018 military pact aimed at reducing tensions invalid.
