North Korea orders military readiness amid drone tensions with South Korea

North Korea said Sunday it had ordered military units deployed near the border with South Korea to be prepared to shoot after claiming the South had sent unmanned drones carrying propaganda leaflets to Pyongyang.

Relations between the two Koreas are at a low point, with the North’s leader Kim Jong Un declaring South Korea to be his country’s “principal enemy” earlier in 2024.

Citing the North’s defense ministry statement, the official Korean Central News Agency reported that “the General Staff of the KPA issued a preliminary operation order on Oct. 12 to the combined artillery units along the border… to get fully ready to open fire.”

KPA stands for the Korean People’s Army, the North’s military.

The order was for “eight artillery brigades fully armed at full wartime strength on standby to open fire,” until Sunday at 8:00 pm (1100 GMT).

KCNA also said other units were ordered to “intensify monitoring on full alert” while “anti-air observation posts have been reinforced” in the capital city Pyongyang.

North Korea on Friday said the South had sent drones carrying propaganda leaflets into Pyongyang’s airspace on Oct. 3, and then again on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

The drones allegedly sent by the South had dropped anti-regime propaganda, and the leaflets were filled with “inflammatory rumors and rubbish,” KCNA said.

Flying drones into Pyongyang’s airspace “could be considered a military attack”, the North’s foreign ministry said, according to KCNA, adding it is “an intolerable and unforgivable grave provocation.”

The South Korean defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, initially denied the claim, but the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff later amended that position, saying in a statement that they “cannot confirm whether the North Korean allegations are true or not”.

The North’s army last week said it would “permanently shut off and block the southern border” with South Korea.