North Korea fired around 130 artillery shells into the sea off its east and west coasts on Monday (December 5th), the South Korean military said, in the latest apparent military exercise near their shared border.
Some of the shells landed in a buffer zone near the maritime border, which Seoul called a violation of a 2018 inter-Korean agreement to reduce tensions.
The South Korean military has sent several warning communications to the North about the shootings, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
North Korea did not immediately report the artillery fire, but it conducted increasing military activities, including missile launches and drills by warplanes and artillery units.
South Korea and the United States have also stepped up military drills this year, saying they are needed to deter the nuclear-armed North.
The 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) was the most substantive deal from months of meetings between leader Kim Jong Un and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
However, with those talks long-stalled, recent drills and shows of force along the fortified inter-Korean border have cast doubts on the future of the measures. South Korea has accused the North of repeatedly violating the agreement with artillery drills this year
This year, North Korea resumed testing its long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the first time since 2017, and South Korea and the United States said they were also preparing to resume testing nuclear