S. Korea resumes border artillery drills on land for 1st time in 6 years

By Lee Minji

SEOUL, July 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korea resumed Tuesday live-fire exercises at artillery ranges near the border with North Korea for the first time in six years, following the suspension of an inter-Korean tension-reduction pact that restricted such drills.

The drills, involving K9 and K105A1 self-propelled howitzers, took place at front-line ranges in the provinces of Gyeonggi and Gangwon, according to the Army.

The move came nearly a month after South Korea fully suspended the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on June 4 in the wake of North Korea's trash balloon campaigns and attempts to disrupt GPS signals near border islands.

The suspension enabled South Korea to resume drills to bolster front-line defenses. Previously, artillery and naval drills as well as regiment-level field maneuvers were banned due to land and maritime buffer zones set up in the area. No-fly zones had also been designated near the border to prevent accidental aircraft clashes.

Last week, the Marine Corps resumed a full-scale live-fire exercise, involving K9 howitzers and Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher systems, for the first time in seven years on islands near the tensely guarded western inter-Korean maritime border.

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