North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong Plays Mind Games with South Korea’s Military

Kim Yo Jong, the deputy director of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, claimed that she had carried out deceptive operations against the South Korean military by mentioning artillery fire in the northwestern islands area of the West Sea.

In a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency on the 7th, Kim stated that our military had observed the reaction of the military gangsters by exploding 60 rounds of explosives that simulated the fortress of the 130mm coastal gun, and said, “Our army has been watching the reaction of the military gangsters by exploding 60 rounds of explosives that simulated the 130mm coastal gun.”

She continued, “They even fabricated a lie that the point of impact fell on the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea, guessing the sound of the explosion as a fortress and provoking artillery fire, and swallowed it whole without even chewing the bait that North Korea threw.”

She cautioned that the military’s frequently uttered phrases “immediately, strongly, to the end” could transform into ominous realities of “instant death, forced death, the end” if their current actions persist.

However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff refuted that North Korea had actually fired coastal artillery and was conducting low-quality psychological warfare about our military’s ability to detect artillery shells.

Lee Seong Jun, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s public affairs office, claimed on the same day that “our military can distinguish between North Korea’s firing and artillery fire” and that North Korea had tried to confuse the military by exploding explosives at the same time as the artillery fire on the 6th.

In particular, he pointed out that Kim Yo Jong’s statement was intended to strengthen internal solidarity in North Korea and provoke conflict within South Korea.

Previously, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that the North Korean military had fired about 350 rounds of coastal artillery in the northwestern islands area for three days from the 5th to the 7th. In response, the military fired about 400 rounds of artillery using K-9 and others on the 5th but did not respond with fire from the 6th as the shells did not cross the Northern Limit Line.

Meanwhile, the military authorities announced on the same day that the maritime buffer zone, where hostile activities are suspended in the West Sea according to the 9.19 Military Agreement, has lost its effect.

The 9.19 Military Agreement is a supplementary agreement adopted through the Pyongyang Summit between former President Moon Jae In and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2018. It contains measures to prevent accidental military clashes between the South and the North.

Accordingly, land, sea, and air buffer zones were set up at the Military Demarcation Line, including about 135km of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea.

By. Lee Gi Bong