By Hyun Young Yi and Brenda Goh
GIMPO, South Korea, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Visitors to a South Korean observatory that overlooks North Korea said on Tuesday that the appearance of artillery pieces with their barrels pointed south on the border was worrying, as tensions between the two countries intensify.
The two Koreas have traded barbs and strengthened their postures along the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating them since September, after a mine blast there wounded three South Korean soldiers. South Korea has demanded that North Korea apologise, while Pyongyang has accused Seoul of fabricating the incident.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader, said last Thursday that Pyongyang would place loudspeakers that can blast anti-South Korean propaganda on standby along the entire border within days and had put unspecified new countermeasures on alert.
On Friday, South Korean media photographed an armoured vehicle in clear view near the frontier. By Monday, there were three with their gun barrels pointed south, according to a Reuters witness.
“I’d only seen on TV that North Korea had deployed 122-mm artillery, but seeing the area in person makes me realise just how real the danger is,” Jang Gil-seong, an 83-year-old war veteran who fought in the Vietnam War, said outside the Aegibong observatory, which overlooks North Korea’s Kaephung county from about 1.4 km away.
“I’m really concerned about how much South Korea will need to do to prepare for and respond to this threat in the future.”
The DMZ remains a draw for foreign and local tourists despite periodic flare-ups in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.
Hannah Robbins, a 28-year-old tourist from Canada, said her tour group had only found out about the artillery pieces after their guide told them about the weapons at the observatory.
“We’re a bit scared obviously,” she said. “The tour guide was like ‘don’t worry, they won’t shoot’ but then it’s a bit of a worry that we have right now.”
Analysts identified the weapons as M-1981 122-mm self-propelled howitzers, an older North Korean artillery system believed to have entered service in the late 1970s.
They have a maximum range of about 24 km (15 miles), putting areas such as the South Korean town of Gimpo where the observatory is located within reach, although they are less powerful than newer artillery systems, said Yang Uk, a military expert at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“I would view this more as a display of firepower than a meaningful increase in combat capability,” Yang said.
“The fact that it was positioned where it can be easily seen suggests it was deployed to be noticed.”
South Korea’s military also described the weapons as an older system.
“While North Korea has mentioned new weapons systems in its recent statements, we believe that this cannot be considered as such,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Jang Do-young told a briefing on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Hyunyoung Yi, Brenda Goh, Daewoung Kim in Gimpo and Kyu-seok Shim in SeoulEditing by Ed Davies)
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