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Kim Jong-un, the heir apparent of North Korea, has developed a strong interest and knowledge of artillery and appears to have planned Tuesday’s unprecedented shelling of South Korean territory, a North Korea expert said Thursday.
The surprise artillery attack, which took the lives of four South Koreans, did not take place by accident ― it happened after extensive preparations and a round of military drills under the supervision of Kim, Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute, said in a parliamentary forum.
Cheong said Kim’s academic and military career has been centered on the development of new artillery systems and tactics.
“An internal document of the North’s military states that Kim studied artillery at Kim Il-sung University and excelled at it,” Cheong said adding that Kim developed the communist regime’s first strategy map using global positioning systems in 2006 as his graduation project.
The internal document claims that Kim developed a new map that is much more accurate than existing ones.
Cheong added that Kim would have been deeply involved in the North’s designation of “firing zones” near the South Korean island of Baengnyeong in the West Sea from Jan. 25 through Jan. 29.
“It was a test for a precision artillery attack,” Cheong said.
Cheong said Kim appears to be taking a much more aggressive approach in use of military force and a full-blown war may break out on the Korean Peninsula at any time unless Pyongyang and Seoul reach an agreement on the maritime sea border in the West Sea.
When the Korean War ended in 1953, the U.N. Command established the Northern Limit Line, which has been seen as the de factor maritime border on the West Sea, to avoid clashes at sea. However, the communist North has yet to accept it.
“It is natural for North Korea to feel angry and aggravated by the NLL,” he noted, acknowledging that the line violates the right to extend territorial waters to up to 12 nautical miles from the baseline, a rule set by the U.N.
As a result, the communist North does not observe the NLL, he said.
Yeonpyeong Island, which the North bombarded with shells, Tuesday, is located only 2 kilometers south of the disputed sea border, which was also the scene of bloody inter-Korean naval skirmishes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.
A North Korean submarine allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship on March 26, killing 46 sailors onboard near the NLL.
이번 포격의 배후인물은 김정은
북한 전문가에 따르면 김정일의 후계자인 김정은은 무기에 많은 관심과 지식을 가지고 있으며 전례가 없 이번 남한 포격을 진두 지휘한 것 같다.
남측 4명의 목숨을 앗아간 이번 북한의 공격은 갑작스러운 것이 아닌 김정은의 지휘아래 합동훈련을 거쳐 준비된 것으로 보여진다.
김정은이 그간 쌓아온 군사적 경험이 이번과 같은 새로운 포격 전술에 반영된 것.
김은 군사적 측면에서 더 공격적인 태도를 취하고 있으며 남한과 북한이 서해상의 경계에 있어 타협점을 찾지 못하면 더 심각한 교전이 발생할 수 있다는 것이 전문가들의 견해.
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