AUGUST 21 (Reuters) — Japan asked Pyongyang to exercise ‘self-restraint’ on Friday (August 21) after North Korea fired shots across the border at South Korea.
“We are demanding that North Korea exercise self-restraint, and we will continue to deal with it with a sense urgency,” Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters gathered at the Prime minister’s office.
South Korea fired a barrage of artillery rounds into North Korea on Thursday (August 20) after the North shelled across the border to protest against anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts by Seoul.
North Korea did not return fire but warned Seoul in a letter that it would take military action if the South did not stop the broadcasts along the border within 48 hours, the South’s Defense Ministry said.
In a separate letter, Pyongyang said it was willing to resolve the issue even though it considered the broadcasts a declaration of war, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.
North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, would put his troops on a “fully armed state of war” starting from 5 p.m. (0830GMT) on Friday and had declared a “quasi-state of war” in frontline areas, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency reported.
Such language is often used by North Korea in times of tension with the South.
A South Korean military official said the broadcasts would continue. Seoul began blasting anti-North Korean propaganda from loudspeakers on the border on Aug. 10, resuming a tactic that both sides had stopped in 2004.
