In Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual Saturday and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks under parasols from the summer Sunday. There are no visible signs of increased security measures, though the city is even under normal situations heavily secured and fortified.
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North Korea on Friday requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting on the tensions, An Myong Hun, the North’s deputy ambassador to the UN, told reporters in New York. The South also placed its military on high alert. There are now 83 South Koreans in Pyongyang attending a youth soccer event.
The conflict broke out after North Korea appears to have initiated the confrontation, reportedly firing a missile at a loudspeaker conveying anti-Pyongyang propaganda.
The Dora Observatory looking across the Demilitarized Zone was shut down by security forces. The agreement came hours before the 5 p.m. deadline North Korea set for a military action.
South Korea said it launched a barrage of artillery on Thursday after the North fired shells into its territory.
Evans Revere, a former senior State Department official, said: “If Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung was in charge, I would say that leadership in North Korea would recognise that South Korea has responded in kind to an attack and it’s time to stand down”.
“If North Korea continues on provoking, our military – as we have already warned – will respond sternly, and end the evil provocations of North Korea“, he said, adding the country is working closely with the United States.
That deadline passed without any reported incidents.
As the verbal sniping continued, the South’s President, Park Geun-hye, visited troops at a base south of Seoul, receiving a briefing from military officials on the latest situation, her office said.
The South fired back 29 artillery rounds over the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing the countries. It remains unclear whether the two sides can defuse the tension. “They are remaining in an enhanced status as part of the exercise, and of course to ensure adequate deterrence on the peninsula”, he said.
Ban is a former South Korean foreign minister.
It came one day after the two sides exchanged fire at the border.
Pyongyang had previously issued its southern neighbour with an ultimatum: stop making anti-North Korea broadcasts by 5pm on Saturday, August 22, or face military action.
For the moment, there has been little sense of panic among ordinary South Koreans who have become largely inured over the years to the North’s regular – and regularly unrealised – threats of imminent war. The U.S. and South Korea insist they are defensive in nature.
South Korea has resumed the broadcasts along the border for the first time in 11 years in retaliation against North Korea for a recent land mine attack that left two South Korean soldiers severely injured.
SEOUL-Senior officials from the two Koreas met for talks at a border outpost on Saturday, offering a possible route out of a military standoff.
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The spike in tensions prompted the U.S. and South Korea to briefly halt an annual military exercise that began this week, U.S. defense officials said Friday.
