S. Korea Resumes Border Artillery Drills on Land for 1st Time in 6 Years

Seoul, South Korea resumed live-fire exercises at artillery ranges near the border with North Korea on Tuesday for the first time in six years, following the suspension of an inter-Korean tension-reduction pact that restricted such drills. South Korea's News Agency (Yonhap) quoted sources in the south army as saying that troops fired some 140 rounds using the K9 and K105A1 self-propelled howitzers during the drills at front-line ranges in the provinces of Gyeonggi and Gangwon. The move came nearly a month after South Korea fully suspended the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on June 4 in the wake of North Korea's trash balloon campaigns and attempts to disrupt GPS signals near border islands. The suspension enabled South Korea to resume drills to bolster front-line defenses. Previously, artillery and naval drills, as well as regiment-level field maneuvers, were banned due to land and maritime buffer zones set up in the area. No-fly zones had also been designated near the border to prevent accidental ai rcraft clashes. Last week, the Marine Corps resumed a full-scale live-fire exercise, involving K9 howitzers and Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher systems, for the first time in seven years on islands near the tensely guarded western inter-Korean maritime border. Source: Qatar News Agency