Kim Jong Un Visits Panmunjom

Kim Jong Un (2nd R) looks through binoculars across the DMZ into South Korea during an inspection of sites in and around P'anmunjo'm. Also in attendance is Gen. Pak Jae Gyong (L) and Gen. Kim Yong Chol (R). Since 2009 Gen. Kim has managed military intelligence operations against South Korea. Closely linked to Kim Jong Un's succession, he was promoted to 4-star general in February 2012. (Photo: KCNA)

DPRK state media reported on 4 March (Sunday) that Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) inspected P’anmunjo’m, a DPRK settlement near the demilitarized zone on the DPRK-ROK border.  According to KCNA Kim Jong Un told service personnel stationed there to “maintain the maximum alertness as they are standing in confrontation with the enemies at all times.”  Attending to his visit were Gen. Pak Jae Gyong, Gen. Kim Yong Chol and Col. Gen. Jo Kyong Chol.

Kim Jong Un (3rd L) visiting P'anmunjo'm. Also in this image are: Kim Yang Gon (5th L), Pak Pong Ju (6th L), Gen. Pak Jae Gyong (7th L), Kang Sok Ju (4th R), Jang Song Taek (3rd R) and Kim Ki Nam (2nd R) (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

Kim Jong Un (1st row, C) poses for a commemorative photograph near a monument of the autograph of Kim Il Sung, his grandfather, the late DPRK President and country founder. Also seen in this image are: Mun Kyong Dok (1st row, L), Choe Ryo'ng-hae (1st row, 2nd L), Pak To Chun (1st row, 3rd L), Jang Song Taek (1st row, 4th L), Kim Yang Gon (1st row, 2nd R), Kim Ki Nam (1st row, 3rd R), Ri Jae Il (2nd Row, 2nd L), Han Kwang Sang (2nd row, 5th L) Pak Pong Ju (2nd row, C), Gen. Kim Yong Chol (2nd row, 6th R), Gen. Pak Jae Gyong (2nd row 5th R), Col. Gen. Jo Kyong Chol (2nd row, 4th R) and Hwang Pyong So (2nd row, R) (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

Also attendance were Kim Yang Gon (KWP Secretary and Director of the United Front Department), Jang Song Taek, Kang Sok Ju (DPRK Cabinet Vice Premier), Kim Ki Nam (KWP Secretary and Director of Propaganda), Pak To Chun (KWP Secretary of Military Industries), Mun Kyong Dok (KWP Secretary), Choe Ryo’ng-hae (KWP Secretary), Ri Jae Il (KWP Propaganda Senior Deputy Director), Hwang Pyong So (KWP Organization Guidance Deputy Director), Pak Pong Ju (KWP Light Industries Deputy Director) and Han Kwang Sang (KWP Finance and Accounting Deputy Director).

KCNA reports:

He was greeted on the spot by commanding officers of the unit standing guard over Panmunjom.

After receiving a report on the unit’s performance of combat duty, he went to the dangerous forefront.

He first visited the Monument to President Kim Il Sung’s Signature standing sublimely at Panmunjom.

He had a photo taken with the officials accompanying him before the monument.

Then he went up to the balcony of the Phanmun Pavilion to learn in detail about the enemy movements.

He expressed great satisfaction over the fact that all the soldiers on the outpost duty were following every move of the enemies with vigilance and performing their combat duties in a responsible manner with strong class resolution to defend the socialist country at the cost of their lives. He highly appreciated their feats.

He told the soldiers on the outpost duty at Panmunjom to always maintain the maximum alertness as they are standing in confrontation with the enemies at all times.

He met those soldiers who had finished their combat duties and had a photo taken with them.

He went round several places of Panmunjom including the Phanmun Pavilion, the Thongil House, the conference room of the armistice talks and the hall where the armistice agreement was signed.

He stressed the need to preserve and manage well the conference room of the armistice talks and the hall where the armistice agreement was signed associated with the history of the great Fatherland Liberation War in which the KPA defeated the imperialist allied forces and the Phanmun Pavilion and the Thongil House which reflect the will of the Korean people to reunify the country in order to show them to the generations to come who will live in the reunified country.

Underlining the need to glorify generation after generation the feats heroic Korea performed by winning victory in the war fought to beat back the U.S.-led imperialist allied forces, startling the world, he emphasized that if a fight occurs in the future, the army and people of the DPRK will force the enemies to sign a paper of surrender, not simply putting signature on the armistice agreement, their knees bent.

Going round a bedroom, mess hall and gymnasium of the soldiers standing guard over Panmunjom and other places, he learned in detail about their service and life.

He put forth the important tasks which would serve as guidelines for increasing the combat capability of the unit.

The Korean people can sleep well and he feels reassured as the soldiers on the outpost duty are defending the gate of the country as firm as an iron wall, he said, adding that he fully believes in them.

He gave them a pair of binoculars, an automatic rifle and a machine gun as souvenirs and had a photo session with them.

The late DPRK leader Kim Jong Il inspects an area near P'anmunjo'm on 24 November 1996, five days after the DPRK closed its liaison office there. Seen in this image are the late VMar Jo Myong Rok (R), Jang Song Taek (2nd R) and Gen. Hyon Chol Hae (4th R) (KCNA file photo)

Service members of the KPA gather for a mass rally on Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang, broadcasted on state television on Sunday, 4 March 2012. (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

Chief of the Korean People's Army General Staff, VMar Ri Yong Ho, delivers the keynote speech during a mass rally held in Pyongyang on 4 March 2012. Also on the rostrum in this image are: KWP Secretaries Mun Kyong Dok (2nd L) and Kim Yang Gon (3rd L); NDC Vice Chairmen Gen. O Kuk Ryol (4th L), VMar Ri Yong Mu (5th L) and VMar Kim Yong Chun (6th L); DPRK Cabinet Premier Choe Yong Rim (7th L); and, KWP Secretaries Kim Ki Nam (8th L) and Choe Tae Bok (9th L) (Photo: KCNA)

Kim Jong Un’s visit occurred before Korean People’s Army [KPA] personnel and DPRK citizens gathered for a mass rally in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang.  Choe Sang Hun writes in the New York Times:

Such rhetoric notwithstanding, North  Korea struck a deal last week with its sworn enemy, the United States, agreeing to suspend its nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to monitor activities at its main nuclear complex. In return, North Korea will receive 240,000 tons of food aid from Washington.

But the country spurned a repeated call by Washington to improve ties with South  Korea, and has instead kept up its criticism of the South, where elections later this year will serve as a referendum on President Lee Myung-bak’s  policies toward the North.

Over the weekend, North Korea escalated its militaristic rhetoric and  threats, criticizing a joint American-South  Korean military drill. It  also seized on a poster in a South  Korean military barracks that was  leaked last week. That poster said: “Let’s beat  Kim Jong-il to death! Let’s strike Kim  Jong-un to death!”

On Sunday, North Korean television  broadcast a rally of 150,000 people  in the capital of Pyongyang vowing to punish  the South for insulting their leader.

Photographs by the North  Korean media showed soldiers  and railroad workers shaking their  rifles and fists under slogans like “Let’s  tear the traitor Lee Myung-bak to  pieces!” or “Let’s beat the psychopathic traitor Lee Myung-bak to death!”

Also on Sunday, the North’s foreign  ministry accused Mr. Lee of trying to  disrupt American efforts to engage the  North.

South Korean officials stood by their  policy of not responding to  these invectives, which  they considered propaganda aimed  at driving a wedge between  Washington and Seoul and inciting a  political dispute within the South in an  election year.

Another view of the rostrum overlooking Kim Il Sung Square where VMar Ri Yong Ho (8th L) delivers a speech to a mass rally. In this image are: Gen. Pak Jae Gyong (L), Minister of People's Security Gen. Ri Myong Su (2nd L), Ministry of State Security Political Bureau Director Col. Gen. Kim Chang Sop (3rd L), NDC Member and Minister of State Security Gen. U Tong Chuk (4th L), NDC Member and KPA General Political Department Deputy Director VMar Kim Jong Gak (5th L), KWP Secretary and Director of General Affairs Tae Jong Su (6th L) and NDC Member and KWP Secretary of Military Industries Pak To Chun. (Photo: KCNA)

Prior to Kim Jong Un’s inspection the National Defense Commission [NDC] Policy Department held a press conference in Pyongyang.  The Associated Press reports:

On Saturday, a spokesman for North Korea’s National Defense Commission told a news conference that the United States must halt the joint military drills if it is serious about peace on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea calls the U.S.-South Korean war games a threat to peace at a time when U.S. and North Korean officials are holding talks aimed at improving relations.

The U.S. and North Korea announced last week that Washington had agreed to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid in exchange for a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear activities. A U.S. envoy is scheduled to meet with North Korean officials in Beijing on Wednesday to discuss the distribution of food.

The deal is seen as a first step toward resuming six-nation nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks suspended in 2009, and a tentative move toward improving the tense relationship between the wartime foes. The six-nation talks involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.

“Talks and military exercises are contradictory,” Maj. Gen. Kwak Chol Hui, deputy director of the National Defense Commission’s Policy Department, told the news conference Saturday in response to a question from The Associated Press.

North Korea considers the drills an additional affront because they are being staged during the semiofficial 100-day mourning period following Kim Jong Il’s Dec. 17 death.

Across Pyongyang, vans mounted with speakers drove through the streets Saturday broadcasting the statement denouncing South Korea. State media reported that 1.7 million young North Koreans signed up for military service in a 24-hour period and that hundreds of thousands signed petitions calling for revenge. The figures could not be confirmed independently.

Meanwhile, in another indication of his status in the central leadership, a documentary film on Kim Jong Un’s military inspections and other public activities during January 2012 has been released.

Kim Jong Un Inspects IV Army Corps Units

Kim Jong Un (2nd R) watches members of an artillery company training during an inspection of IV Army Corps in South Hwanghae Province (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

DPRK media reported on 25 February (Saturday) that Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) inspected several units under the Korean People’s Army [KPA] IV Corps, including its 4th battalion which was responsible for the artillery shelling of  Yo’np’yo’ng Island on 23 November 2010.  According to KCNA he was accompanied by Gen. Kim Myong Kuk, Gen. Kim Won Hong, Gen. Pak Jae Gyong, Col. Gen. Hwang Pyong So, Col. Gen. Kim Chun Sam and personnel of the KPA Supreme Command.

He inspected the 1st and 4th Battalions under KPA Unit 403 stationed in the forefront area.

He gave the service personnel of the battalions pairs of binoculars and automatic rifles as souvenirs before having photo sessions with them.

He inspected combat positions of the 4th Battalion to learn in detail about its combat preparations.

The battalion is a proud sub-unit well known to the world as it turned Yonphyong Island into the one in flames by retaliating against south Korean puppet warmongers’ reckless shelling into territorial waters of the DPRK side to launch aggression through merciless shelling.

He highly appreciated the feats the soldiers performed by showing what the arms in the hands of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu and the battle fought by it were like.

He went round a soldiers’ bedroom and wash-cum-bath house of a company under the battalion and took deep care of their living.

After viewing the combat positions of the sub-unit in the light of terrains and combat preparation, he said the present deployment of the sub-unit was not suitable from a tactical point of view, setting forth a task to courageously transfer and deploy its forces in new positions.

He went round a soldiers’ bedroom, education room and various other places of a company under the 1st Battalion to take warm care of the soldiers’ living.

He inspected a forward command post of KPA Unit 688 stationed in a forefront area.

He mounted the forward command post where he learned about the deployment of reinforced forces and equipment of the unit defending Yonphyong Island of the south Korean puppet army.

Feasting his eyes on vast defence theatres in the forefront area and the land of the south whose sky is overcast with dark clouds of war due to the enemy’s preparations for a new war of aggression such as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises, he learned in detail about the terrains, the distribution of forces of the unit and its guard duty.

He put forward the important tasks which would serve as guidelines for increasing the combat capability of the unit in every way and consolidating the defence theatre as firm as a rock in view of provocations of the enemy.

He continued his journey to inspect a battalion under KPA Unit 493 stationed in a forefront area.

He mounted a watch post of a costal artillery battalion under the unit where he looked over Paekryong Island near from it and learned about its guard duty.

Asking if there is any change in the enemy’s recent movements and how combat and technical equipment and forces are deployed, he underlined the need to further increase the density of firing in the future and steadily revise and supplement the proposal for sharing the firing duties and using equipment as required by a modern warfare and the changing deployment of enemy’s forces.

He guided soldiers of Artillery Piece No. 1 of the Second Company under the battalion in firepower training.

He inspected a battalion under KPA Unit 641 stationed in the forefront area.

He gave the soldiers of the battalion a pair of binoculars, automatic rife and machinegun as souvenirs before having a photo session with them.

Making the rounds of an education room, bedroom, mess hall and other cultural and educational and supply service facilities, he paid deep attention to the service and living of soldiers.

The southwestern sector of the front is a hot spot where a war may break out any moment due to the enemy’s reckless provocations for aggression, he noted, calling for keeping the service personnel on utmost alert in view of the touch-and-go situation. He ordered them to make a powerful retaliatory strike at the enemy, should the enemy intrude even 0.001 mm into the waters of the country where its sovereignty is exercised.

Kim Jong Un (2nd R) visits a coastal defense position during an inspection of the IV Army Corps (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

Kim Jong Un (2nd R) looks through binoculars from a command post, as part of an inspection of the IV Army Corps. Also seen in attendance are Gen. Kim Won Hong (L), Col. Gen. Pyon In Son (2nd L) and Gen. Pak Jae Gyong (R) According to South Korean media, Col. Gen. Pyon, a former deputy defense minister, assumed command of IV Corps in August 2011 (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

KJU’s appearance was reported not long after the DPRK’s National Defense Commission [NDC] published a report in state media that threatened “a sacred war to counter of our own style and protect the security of the nation and the peace of the country” as a reaction to the annual joint US-ROK military exercises Key Resolve/Foal Eagle.  The NDC’s statement was released as US and DPRK diplomats concluded a third interaction over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program in Beijing.

The Lee Myung Bak group of traitors has embarked upon the road of kicking off again DPRK-targeted Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises in league with the brigandish U.S. imperialists, defying strong domestic and foreign public protest and condemnation.

Huge troops of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces and their strike means have already been deployed in south Korea and in its vicinity and huge forces of the three services of the puppet army have been put on a wartime posture.

Key Resolve and Foal Eagle are unpardonable war hysteria kicked up by the hooligans to desecrate our mourning period and an unpardonable infringement upon our sovereignty and dignity.

This is, at the same time, a blatant challenge to peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and an undisguised act of disturbing them.

The on-going development goes to prove that the Lee group which is more dead than alive, forsaken by the times, is still resorting to the last-ditch moves for war, backed by its American master.

In view of the prevailing situation, the National Defence Commission of the DPRK clarifies the following principled stand internally and externally:

First. Our army and people will foil the moves of the group of traitors to the nation and warmongers at home and abroad for a new war with a sacred war of our own style.

We have so far made every possible effort to avert a war and defend peace with a high degree of patience and magnanimity.

The Lee group and the warmongers at home and abroad are, however, unhesitatingly plunging to the road of an adventurous war, dreaming of “Egyptian style change” and “Libyan style victory”, ignorant of who their rival is.

War maneuvers staged against the belligerent party are, in essence, a silent declaration of a war.

The declaration of the war is bound to be accompanied by a corresponding physical retaliation.

Now that a war has been declared against us, the army and people are firmly determined to counter it with a sacred war of our own style and protect the security of the nation and the peace of the country.

The target of this war is the Lee group and hordes of warmongers at home and abroad.

The Lee group is hordes of traitors for all ages as it is rubbing salt into the wound of the compatriots grieving over the great loss to the nation through a renewed saber-rattling, not content with the high treason it had already committed during that period.

The U.S. imperialists are the sworn enemy keen to launch another war of aggression to impose “American style political mode” upon us, not content with the painful tragedy of division forced upon our nation, the tragedy that has lasted for more than half a century.

The sacred war will make a clean sweep of the Lee group and those warmongers from this land by the war mode of our own style, our strong striking means unknown to the world.

Second. The just struggle of the people in the south and overseas compatriots will be further intensified to bring down the Lee regime under the motto of peace against war.

The Lee group is nothing but human scum which had been forsaken by all Koreans already long ago.

“Myung Bak, quit” and “Let’s judge the Lee Myung Bak regime and set up a new government for national reconciliation.” This is the shout of the political and social circles in south Korea and the mind-set there.

The Lee regime is little short of a ship in distress which began sinking in face of the stormy waves of the angry public.

We admonished the group enough to make it understand and set an example in the four years of its office and showed it through an actual battle what our strike that turned waters into a sea in flames.

This being a hard reality, the Lee regime is still persisting in sycophancy, submission and treachery, failing to come to its senses.

That is why we branded the group of traitors as the one which should not be let to go scot-free.

In response to the mind-set in the south, our army and people will encourage and firmly back the people in the south and overseas compatriots in their nation-wide struggle to bring down the Lee regime in the idea of attaching importance to the nation and putting it above anything else and from a patriotic stand.

Third. Our army and people will show the U.S. imperialist warmongers hell-bent on war of aggression and intervention what their arms and real war are like.

It is the U.S. imperialist aggressors who are chiefly to blame for having driven into a phase of war the unstable situation on the peninsula where neither war nor peace has persisted for such a long period. It is again those warmongers who have staged ceaseless provocative war maneuvers in south Korea and in its vicinity, pursuant to their scenarios for a war of aggression against the north to confirm their feasibility.

In view of the intensified moves of the U.S. imperialists to ignite a war against the DPRK, they will shatter reckless military provocations, arms build-up and war maneuvers with increased posture to fight a resolute battle against the U.S. and launch a struggle of high intensify to drive out of this land the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces, the main hurdle lying in the way of achieving peace and security on the peninsula.

They will always keep the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces and centers for their military operations against the DPRK within striking range and wipe them out at a single blow, should they provoke us.

Nuclear weapons are not the monopoly of the U.S. We have war means more powerful than the U.S. nukes and ultra-modern striking equipment which no one has ever possessed.

The U.S. is sadly mistaken if it thinks it is safe as its mainland is far away across the ocean.

There is no limit to the striking intensity and range of our army and people to wipe out the aggressors.

It is their unchangeable stand to show the enemy what their arms and real war are like.

The ongoing struggle to bury the group of traitors and warmongers at home and abroad is a patriotic struggle on which the destiny of the nation in the new century of Juche year hinges.

No force on earth can overpower the single-mindedly united army and people of the DPRK.

Under the leadership of the peerless brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu they will usher in a new era of national reconciliation and peace and prosperity proudly and forcefully, shattering every war move of the enemy.

Funeral Held for ROK Marines Killed in YP-do Attack

South Korea holds a nationally televised funeral for two marines killed in an artillery clash with North Korea earlier this week, at a military hospital in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on Nov. 27. The two marines and two civilians were killed in the Nov. 23 North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island. (Yonhap)

The ROK held a funeral Saturday (27 November) for ROK Marines Sgt. Seo Jeong-woo and Pvt. Moon Kwan-wook who were killed during the DPRK’s artillery attack on YP-do on 23 November.  Yonhap reports:

South Korea began a nationally televised funeral Saturday for two marines killed in an artillery clash with North Korea earlier this week as tension soared on the peninsula ahead of massive U.S.-South Korean naval drills aimed at intimidating Pyongyang.

The funeral, held at a military hospital in the city of Seongnam, just south of Seoul, drew hundreds of ranking government officials, general-grade officers, politicians, religious leaders, anti-North Korea activists and civilians angered by the clash on Tuesday.

North Korea denies initiating the exchange of artillery shells that also killed two South Korean civilians on the western island of Yeonpyeong. Seoul and Washington are set to begin a naval exercise mobilizing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea on Sunday in a show of force against Pyongyang.

At 2:34 pm KST on 23 November 2010, DPRK fired some 170 artillery shells at YP-do (located near the Northern Limit Line) over two hours in a flagrant and malicious violation of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.  About 90 of the KPA’s shells fell into the water, and 80 fell on land.  The DPRK’s attack killed two ROK Marines and two civilians and caused the evacuation of most of YP-do’s civilian population.  19 homes were destroyed and fires caused by the KPA’s shells destroyed 70% of a forest.

A dog wounded by a North Korean shell that hit the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong earlier this week eats part of a combat ration from a South Korean man on Nov. 27. Most of the residents on the island have evacuated since the artillery attack on Nov. 23. (Yonhap)

On Sunday (28 November) morning explosions originating in North Korea caused YP-do’s remaining population to seek shelter in bunkers, and the ROK’s defense ministry ordered journalists to depart the island.

“At this stage, it is unpredictable what kind of a provocative action North Korea will take using the South Korean-U.S. joint drills as a justification,” the ministry said in a statement. “So we ask journalists on Yeonpyeong Island to leave within today.”

The South’s military “cannot guarantee” the safety of journalists in case of North Korea’s provocation, it said.

A ministry official said all journalists were advised to leave Yeonpyeong. He said a Coast Guard ship would be waiting at around 7:00 p.m. to transport them.

“It’s not an evacuation, but even if some of the journalists stay on the island, they will be banned from reporting,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

Residents of South Korea's western Yeonpyeong Island bordering North Korea arrive at Incheon port on Nov. 24 after evacuating from the island, which was hit hard by an indiscriminate North Korean attack the day before. The communist country fired hundreds of rounds of artillery at the island and its surrounding areas on Nov. 23, killing two South Korean marines and injuring a score of other soldiers and civilians.

Houses destroyed in North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island (Yonhap News)

This photo, taken by a firefighter on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, shows some areas engulfed in smoke as North Korea fired about 170 rounds of artillery on the island on Nov. 23. The attack killed at least four South Koreans, including two civilians, and injured more than a dozen others. (Photo courtesy of Incheon Fire Dept.)

4th UN Command-KPA Meeting

Photo: Yonhap

The 4th round of colonel-level talks at Panmunjom between the UN Command and the KPA concluded.  A 5th round of of these working-level field grade talks was deemed necessary before general-level talks are convened.

Officials from the United Nations Command and North Korea, who have met four times to plan for talks among generals from both sides regarding the March sinking of a South Korean warship, will need at least one more session to work out an agenda and protocols, a UNC spokesman said Tuesday.The colonels at a meeting Tuesday in Panmunjom did not discuss the barrage of artillery the North fired Monday into the Yellow Sea, which Koreans call the West Sea, as the South completed a naval exercise in the waters.

“That was not the purpose of the meeting,” said UNC spokesman David Oten, adding that both sides followed the previously set agenda for the meeting.

KPA Warns ROK Naval Drill of “Physical Counter-attack”

The DPRK reportedly deployed long-range, SA-5 anti-aircraft missiles to the DMZ around the time of the Cheonan's sinking in March, 2010 (Chosun Ilbo)

The Korean People’s Army’s western command issued a tactical “notice”, in response to planned anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea by the ROK military which will begin tomorrow (5 August) and last for five (5) days.  The KPA western command said it “adopted a determined decision to on suppressing the reckless naval firing rackets of the gang of traitors with a mighty physical counter strike…it is the unchanging and firm resolve of our people and military to control fire with fire.”

JoongAng Ilbo reports:

Despite North Korea’s threat of “powerful physical retaliation,” South Korea said yesterday it will go ahead with a planned drill in the dangerous waters west of the peninsula.

Starting tomorrow, South Korea will hold anti-submarine drills for five days in the Yellow Sea. The exercise was planned as an armed demonstration to Pyongyang to protest North Korea’s deadly torpedo attack on the South Korean warship Cheonan in March near the western inter-Korean border. The South’s Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force will have a joint exercise in various locations in the Yellow Sea and will include a series of firing drills.

The communist country’s military yesterday made clear its opposition to the drills, particularly the exercise planned to take place off the five islands near the inter-Korean border. “We will return fire for fire,” the North said in a statement, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency.

Once again, the North challenged the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea, insisting that the South is planning drills in its territorial waters and calling the exercise an overt military intrusion.

Dong-a Ilbo reports:

To this, the South Korean military said, “The drill is a defensive exercise being conducted within our sovereign waters,” adding, “We will conduct the exercise in the Yellow Sea as scheduled.”

To run Thursday through Monday, the joint drill will have the South Korean Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines take part. More than 20 warships including a 4,500-ton Korean destroyer (KDX-Ⅱ), anti-submarine helicopters, P3-C maritime surveillance patrol aircraft, and fighters such as the F-15K and KF-16 will be deployed.

Exercises to prevent abrupt landing through water and land by special enemy units will also be carried out, as well as naval firing by warships and from underwater.

Meanwhile, Chosun Ilbo reports that the DPRK deployed SA-5 anti-aircraft missiles to the DMZ, around the time the Cheonan sank in March of this year.

North Korea deployed long-range anti-aircraft missiles with a range of 250 km near the demilitarized zone around the time of it sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March, making it more dangerous for South Korean fighter jets to fly routine patrol missions or carry out emergency flights.

A military source on Monday said the North moved some SA-5 missiles from Hwanghae Province to areas near the DMZ. “Our fighter jets’ activity is therefore somewhat restricted. For example, our fighters have to avoid SA-5 tracer radar detection for fear of an attack when it is activated.”

The SA-5 has the longest range of anti-aircraft missiles deployed warfare-ready in the world. It can hit South Korean fighters in flight over some areas in Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces, as well as over the frontline area and the Seoul metropolitan region.

The move seems to be aimed at preventing South Korean fighters from launching precision strikes on strategic targets in the North in an emergency, the source added.

If the SA-5 radar is activated, South Korean fighter jets will have to fly at an altitude of less than 3,000 m to avoid radar detection.

3rd Round of UN Command-KPA Meeting Held Friday

USS Tuscon (SSN 770) transits the Pacific Ocean while leading a 13-ship formation July 26 ,2010. The Republic of Korea and the United States are conducting the combined alliance maritime and air readiness exercise “Invincible Spirit” in the seas east of the Korean peninsula from July 25-28, 2010. This is the first in a series of joint military exercises that will occur over the coming months in waters surrounding Korea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class (SW/AW) Adam K. Thomas)

The third colonel-level meeting between the UN Command and the Korean People’s Army occurred on Friday (30 July) in Panmunjom.  After a two hour meeting, a 4th round was scheduled for 9 August, possibly to arrange a general-level session.

The American-led United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea agreed to hold another working-level meeting early next month to arrange general-level dialogue on the sinking of a South Korean warship, an official for the UNC said.

The agreement was reached at the end of the third round of working-level military talks attended by colonels from the UNC and North Korea on Friday, the official said, adding that the meeting was held for about two hours at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

Meanwhile, there are rumors in the ROK of a recent cyber attack by the DPRK, which may or may not be related to the recent declaration of “sacred war”:

The presidential office is on alert against a cyberattack by North Korea after receiving intelligence reports, the Blue House said yesterday.

“The National Cyber Security Center [NCSC] obtained intelligence on a possible cyberattack from North Korea,” Blue House spokeswoman Kim Hee-jung told reporters. A relevant team at the Blue House is on emergency alert footing from Tuesday in cooperation with the NCSC, she added.

The possible cyberattack seems to be associated with the North’s threat of a “sacred war” to retaliate against the large-scale joint naval drills between South Korea and the United States in the East Sea, which ended yesterday, she added.