Many people complain about wearing mask outdoors, imagine having to wear an entire hazmat suit:
South Korean soldiers stationed on the southern side of the Joint Security Area on Feb. 7, 2023. Korea Times photo by Jack Lau
North Korean troops have become somewhat of a rare sight. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, North Korean soldiers have avoided showing themselves in public to ward off the disease, at the cost of suspending in-person talks with the U.N. Command about upholding the armistice.
“They no longer meet with us face to face,” said Lt. Col. Griff Hofman of the U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission behind the sky-blue conference huts at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom managed by the commission.
“It’s all done via the hotline, and they generally stay in Panmungak,” he said, referring to the main building on the North Korean side of the area that is also known as the Phanmun Pavilion. “If North Korean troops needed to go outdoors, they wore hazmat suits.”
Guards at truce village South Korean soldiers are on guard on the southern side of the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom in Paju, 30 kilometers north of Seoul, on Feb. 7, 2023. (Yonhap)
Fortunately this did not lead to a bigger incident:
A South Korean soldier has mistakenly fired a machine gun during training near the border with North Korea, and the military has immediately informed North Korea that the shooting was not intentional, military officials said Sunday.
The South Korean military said four live rounds were fired from the machine gun during a training session by an Army unit along the inter-Korean border in the eastern province of Gangwon at 6:27 p.m. on Saturday.
All of the bullets landed in the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line and no damage was reported. No firings were planned for the training.
The military unit immediately informed North Korea via broadcasting on several occasions that the firings were not intentional and stepped up emergency readiness posture, the officials said.
5 students from DSD, Daeseong-dong, Elementary School have celebrated their graduation, surrounded by friends, family & senior mil officers. #DSD is the only residential area within the southern section of #DMZ, it's counterpart village in #NK, Kijong-dong is only 1.6 km away. pic.twitter.com/hLeP9yFN4c
— United Nations Command 유엔군사령부/유엔사 (@UN_Command) January 3, 2023
And the right of self defense is more fundamental than the Amristice. All anations have the right to defend themselves. Although I was oposed to the CMA in 2018 for the lack reduction in north Korean threat, I would not withdraw from it now – ROK maintain the moral high ground.
This is actually what I think the Kim regime wants to happen to justify their long expected nuclear test:
President Yoon Suk Yeol (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered aides to consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement if North Korea violates the South’s territory again, an official said Wednesday.
Yoon’s remark came after five North Korean drones infiltrated South Korean airspace last week, raising serious questions about South Korea’s readiness posture.
On Wednesday, Yoon was briefed by the presidential National Security Office, the defense ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Agency for Defense Development on the country’s anti-drone preparations.
“President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed the National Security Office to consider suspending the Sept. 19 military agreement in the event North Korea carries out another provocation violating our territory,” senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye told reporters.
You can read more at the link, but cancelling the agreement would mean the guard posts, landmines, tank traps, propaganda speakers, etc. could all be reinstalled along the DMZ that prior President Moon had removed. The Kim regime can spend this as a South Korean provocation against peace on the peninsula that they respond with a nuclear test too.
U.S. Vice President Harris visits DMZ U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (2nd from L) visits the truce village of Panmunjom between South and North Korea inside the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the two Koreas, at the western section of the inter-Korean border in Paju, north of Seoul, on Sept. 29, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
I guess the Vice President was trying to keep this secret in order to not give the North Koreans time to plan a provocation during her visit:
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, right, holds a bilateral meeting with South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo in Tokyo, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022. (Leah Millis, pool photo via AP)
In meeting after meeting with Asian leaders Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized the U.S. commitment to regional security and the White House disclosed that she would visit the Demilitarized Zone dividing the rival Koreas.
An official said Harris would tour the border area between South and North Korea on Thursday, at the end of her trip to Asia. The visit comes amid persistent concerns about North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.
North Korea test-fired a short-range ballistic missile shortly before Harris left Washington, an apparent response to joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea that include the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the DMZ in August, and then-President Donald Trump went in 2019 when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. President Joe Biden did not go when he was in South Korea earlier this year.
Harris’ plan, which had been kept under wraps by her team, was unexpectedly revealed during a meeting with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Tuesday. A White House official rushed to confirm details of her trip afterward.
