North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has actively toured military units to encourage his troops to be fully prepared to fight as part of efforts to consolidate his regime, Seoul’s defense minister said Wednesday.
“Since November when the North began to stage winter drills, Kim has visited military units 10 times. While leading some aggressive exercises, he has encouraged the military to complete their readiness this year to fight,” Defense Minister Han Min-koo told lawmakers.
While carrying out an increasing number of intensive military maneuvers, North Korea has “forward-deployed anti-aircraft guns near the military demarcation line and launched relevant drills in order to counter the leaflets sent by our civic groups,” Han added.
Some conservative civic groups here have sent leaflets across the inter-Korean border into the communist country, which criticize the authoritarian regime. Despite the North’s repeated calls on the South to deter them, the Seoul government has refused to do so, citing the freedom of speech.
“Claiming our naval ships violated the inter-Korean border near Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea, the North has sent warnings and continued firing drills,” Han noted.
The NLL is the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas, but the North does not recognize the line, demanding it be drawn further south.
In response, the South Korean military has maintained a solid deterrence posture under the South Korea-U.S. alliance mechanism, he added.
According to the authorities here, North Korea has been preparing for a full-scale war since last year after declaring 2015 the year of completing unification.
As the latest of its saber-rattling moves, North Korea fired five short-range missiles into the East Sea on Sunday, two days after it test-fired a new ultra-precision anti-ship rocket in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. (Yonhap)
