By AHN News Staff

Seoul, South Korea

Just a day after South Korea fired warning shots on North Korea in response to its shell firing near the disputed border, Seoul blasted Pyongyang for faking up the incident.

North Koreans claimed that the incident was normal blasting, which happened as part of construction work, adding that it was routine and unnatural.

The South Korean Defense Ministry said that the frontier post clearly witnessed landing of three out of five shells fired by North Korea on the border known as the Northern Limit Line.

The latest incident came just hours after North Korea called on the United States and South Korea to cancel their joint military exercise, which is due to start from next week.

United States and South Korean officials described the 10-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian, an annual computer-assisted simulation exercise, as defensive and routine, but North fears that it could be preparation for "a war of aggression".

North accused South of fabricating the Wednesday's firing incident as a "defense" to justify their joint exercise.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has called on North to show restraint over the matter:

"Our understanding is that this exchange of fire has now ended. That's a good thing. We call on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to exercise restraint. What we want to see, as you know, is a continued improvement and improvement in the relationship between the North and the South."

She also urged North to start taking steps with the aim to resume six-party talks on nuclear disarmament issue.

"We now need to move back to the main business at hand, which is for North Korea to show us, to show South Korea, to show its other partners that it's truly committed to the kind of goals that we have together in terms of denuclearization," she said.

 

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World - Seoul Blasts Pyongyang For Fabricating Shelling Incident | Global Viewpoint