The United Nations Command (UNC) has proposed holding a dialogue with North Korea to discuss the escalating tension on the divided Korean Peninsula, a military source on Friday told South Korea's news agency Yonhap.
The UNC is the command structure for the international military forces defending South Korea.
The news came the same day as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared his front-line troops in a "quasi-state of war," and ordered them to prepare for battle a day after South Korea's military fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up a threat to attack loudspeakers broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda.
Yonhap reported that the UNC sent a message to North Korea on Thursday, offering to hold talks with Pyongyang.
“The UNC has called for North Korea to refrain from worsening the situation on the peninsula as the North’s firing of artillery shells is a serious violation of the armistice agreement,” the source said. “It has proposed to have a working-level dialogue to prepare for general-level talks.”
The North had not yet responded to the UNC’s proposal, according to Yonhap.
The North's declaration Friday is similar to its other warlike rhetoric in recent years, including repeated threats to reduce Seoul to a "sea of fire," and the huge numbers of soldiers and military equipment already stationed along the border mean the area is always essentially in a "quasi-state of war."
Still, the North's apparent willingness to test Seoul with military strikes and its recent warning of further action raise worries because South Korea has vowed to hit back with overwhelming strength should North Korea attack again.
Pyongyang says it did not fire anything at the South, a claim Seoul dismissed as nonsense.
Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to "enter a wartime state" and be fully ready for any military operations starting Friday evening, according to a report in Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. The North has also given Seoul a deadline of Saturday evening to remove border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. Failure, Pyongyang says, will result in further military action. Seoul has vowed to continue the broadcasts.
The North's media report said that "military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn't stop operating them."
Yonhap, citing an unidentified government source, reported Friday that South Korean and U.S. surveillance assets detected the movement of vehicles carrying short-range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles in a possible preparation for launches. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report.
North Korea said the South Korean shells fired Thursday landed near four military posts but caused no injuries. No one was reported injured in the South, either, though hundreds were evacuated from front-line towns.
The loudspeaker broadcasts began after South Korea accused the North of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month. North Korea denies this, too.
Authoritarian North Korea, which has also restarted its own propaganda broadcasts, is extremely sensitive to any criticism of its government, run by Kim, whose family has ruled since the North was founded in 1948. The loudspeaker broadcasts are taken seriously in Pyongyang because the government does not want its soldiers and residents to hear outsiders criticize human rights abuses and economic mismanagement that condemns many to abject poverty, South Korean analysts say.
Many in Seoul are accustomed to ignoring or discounting North Korea's repeated threats, but the latest have caused worry because of Pyongyang's warning of strikes if the South doesn't tear down its loudspeakers by Saturday evening.
The rivals are currently also at odds over annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive in nature.
On Friday, residents evacuated in the South Korean town near where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, returned home, officials said. Yonhap reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated Thursday.
Pyongyang was mostly business as usual Friday morning, although propaganda vans with loudspeakers broadcast the state media line that the country was in a "quasi-state of war" to people in the streets.
North Korean officials held a pair of rare briefings Friday to try to win support for their country's ultimatum that South Korea stop anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts by Saturday.
In Beijing, at the North Korean Embassy, Ambassador Ji Jae Ryong told reporters that South Korea's psychological warfare had "gone beyond the limits of tolerance."
South Korea has said the two soldiers wounded in the mine explosions were on a routine patrol in the southern part of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas. One soldier lost both legs and the other one leg.
The Koreas' mine-strewn DMZ is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.
Al Jazeera and The Associated Press
Launched after two South Korean soldiers were hurt by land mines, the radio broadcasts are the first in 11 years
Group of 30 international women cross demilitarized zone by bus after denied by authorities to walk across border
Error
Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Please try again later or using a different browser.