South Korea moves troops near maritime border with North Korea for live-fire drills

On February 19, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced that the Marine Corps conducted live-fire drills on islands near the inter-Korean maritime border to the west.

K9 self-propelled howitzers participate in a live-fire exercise on an unidentified border island in the Yellow Sea, Feb. 19. (Source: Yonhap)

The regular drill, involving K9 self-propelled artillery, took place on Baengnyeong Island and Yeonpyeong Island near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) - the de facto inter-Korean maritime border - amid heightened tensions over North Korea's missile launches this year, Yonhap news agency reported.

The JCS announcement affirmed: "Our military... will continue to strengthen and perfect the combat readiness of the western border island units through regular live-fire exercises at sea in the coming time."

The exercises are defensive in nature, taking place under the supervision of international observers and in compliance with the 1950-1953 Korean War Armistice Agreement, according to the JCS.

The Marines have been conducting regular live-fire drills since June last year, when Seoul completely suspended the inter-Korean military agreement in response to Pyongyang's campaign of launching garbage balloons and efforts to jam GPS signals around the NLL.

The waters near the NLL are a flashpoint between the two Koreas, the site of three bloody naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.

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