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North Korean Artillery Drill Seen as Start of Stepped-up Pressure Campaign

Christy Lee

   WASHINGTON - Analysts say a provocative North Korean artillery exercise
   near its border with the South may be the beginning of a stepped-up
   campaign to try and force the United States to end what it sees as
   hostile policies ahead of its self-declared year-end deadline.

   North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, "is conducting a full-court maximum
   pressure [campaign] against the [South Korean]-U.S. alliance to try to
   coerce the alliance into providing concessions, namely sanctions
   relief," said David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and
   current senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

   Kim recently visited North Korean armed forces at the inter-Korean
   border island of Changrin, where he instructed the troops to practice
   firing artillery and prepare for a "real war-like drill with higher
   degree of intensity," according to a statement released Monday by the
   country's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

   [1]KCNA said the exercise was a"delight" to "the Supreme Leader" but it
   did not identify the type of weapons fired or the exact date of the
   visit, saying simply that it was on "an ordinary day like today."

   North Korea launched an artillery strike on a South Korean island from
   the Changrin Islet in 2010, killing four people. That same year, North
   Korea was accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship near the border,
   killing 46 sailors.

   South Korea's defense ministry said the drill reported by KCNA violated
   the inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement, which was concluded
   in Pyongyang in September 2018 with a goal of reducing military tension
   between the two Koreas.

   The report came just over a week after the United States announced it
   will postpone a joint air defense drill with South Korea in order to
   facilitate denuclearization talks with North Korea.
   

References

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