The Latest on Koreas: Report says N. Korea moving missiles

The two Koreas traded threats on Friday following a brief exchange of fire a day earlier, in a confrontation that experts say carries a risk that the inexperienced North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will provoke South Korea to launch a major military retaliation.

On Thursday, the North reportedly fired shells in the direction of one of South Korea’s propaganda loudspeaker units.

“The Chinese side said it is seriously concerned about the current situation [in Korea]”, the ministry official was quoted by the agency as telling reporters.

The North has given Seoul a deadline of Saturday evening to remove the loudspeakers, which have broadcast anti-Pyongyang propaganda after an 11-year lull, or face further military action, The Associated Press reported.

On May 2014, a North Korean patrol boat fired two rounds of artillery, which fell 150m from a South Korean navy ship in waters near a disputed western sea border.

Han said that South Korea and the United States, which have been maintaining close coordination, would deter any DPRK provocations.

The movement of vehicles in North Korea carrying a short range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles has been detected by US and South Korean surveillance, according to the same agency. The North has denied responsibility.

Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, which ended in a truce and never a formal peace treaty, threats and small amounts of violence have been a common occurrence.

The KCNA report said that “military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn’t stop operating them”.

The US State Department urged North Korea to avoid provoking any further escalation and said it remained “steadfast” in its commitment to defending ally South Korea.

This latest conflict between the divided territories arose after two South Korean soldiers suffered serious injuries following a mine explosion along the DMZ (de-militarized zone), which the UN and South Korea determined was planted by the North.

South Korea retaliated for the mine incident by resuming propaganda broadcasts through loudspeakers in the DMZ for the first time since 2004. About 30 North Korean sailors were believed to have died when one of their torpedo boats was hit and sunk, while South Korean sailors suffered only minor wounds.

North Korea’s tactics so far appear to come from a military playbook it has used successfully for decades.

Yesterday North Korean forces fired a shell at a loudspeaker blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts. In the aftermath of the Yeonpyeong bombardment, the South Koreans determined, or at least publicly insinuated, that they would no longer practice significant restraint in the face of North Korean provocation.

North Korea has additionally restarted its personal propaganda broadcasts.

He has placed his army on what the North calls a “quasi state of war”.

North Korea’s past nuclear tests and the December 2011 death of former leader Kim Jong-il roiled the local financial market, but local stocks rebounded soon after as investors shrugged off a possible full-fledged war and its effect on the fundamentals of the South Korean economy.