By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
North Korea has boosted its artillery capacity along the western sea border with South Korea, by adding dozens of multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) there, the Ministry of National Defense said Friday.
Since naval skirmish last November, the North has reinforced its artillery capabilities and increased drills near the sea border, the ministry said in a report on the North Korean move submitted to a National Assembly committee session.
The report said North Korea has increased the number of 60 kilometer-range 240mm MLRS that can hit the Seoul metropolitan area. The North’s MLRS is known to be able to fire 22 rockets within 35 seconds.
Pyongyang is believed to have sent about 340 240mm MLRS and 170mm self-propelled guns with a range of about 50 kilometers to the area. In a related move, North Korea designated six “naval firing zones” in the West and East seas again, Friday.
The North notified the South of a plan to conduct artillery fire drills in four areas in the West Sea and two areas in the East Sea for three days from Saturday, the National Oceanographic Research Institute in Seoul said on its web site.
Pyongyang’s newest notification comes less than a month after it raised military tensions by firing artillery shells into its waters near the sea border with Seoul for three consecutive days. From Jan. 27 to 29, the North fired around 350 rounds in the West Sea in waters north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas.
The NLL was unilaterally drawn by the U.S. led U.N. Command at the end of the Korean War, and the communist North has refused to honor it. The two sides fought bloody skirmishes near the border in 1999, 2002 and in November last year.
The report said the South Korean military has prepared for 33 possible scenarios of North Korean attacks. South and North Korea are still technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
Seoul believes Pyongyang possesses enough plutonium to build at least six atomic bombs. North Korea, which relies on outside aid to feed its 24 million people, maintains a military of 1.2 million troops.