North Korean Army Shot 250 Artillery Bullets At The Penyangga Area, United States Asks All Provocative Actions To Be Stopped

Vedant Patel gave a press statement. (Twitter/@StateDeputySpox)

JAKARTA - The United States asked North Korea to stop all provocative and threatening actions, instead inviting dialogue, after Pyongyang fired hundreds of artillery shells on Tuesday night.

The South Korean military said North Korea fired artillery shells off the east and west coast after Seoul began annual defense exercises aimed at improving its capability to respond to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

In response to this, US State Department officials regretted North Korea's latest provocation, asking for provocation steps to be stopped.

"So once again, we saw this happening during this week. We are aware of this report, and we ask the DPRK to stop all provocative and threatening actions," said Vedant Patel, deputy spokesman for the US State Department for the daily press conference, citing the Korea Times Oct. 19. The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

The latest incident comes four days after North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into the military buffer zone on Friday last week.

A total of about 100 artillery shells North Korea fired into the Yellow Sea at around 10 p.m., and another 150 rounds into the East Sea starting at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Artillery shells fell into the eastern and western buffer zone north of the Northern Limit Line, which was set up under an inter-Korean 2018 agreement to ease military tensions. South Korea assesses the latest shooting violated the military agreement between the two countries.

"We continue to believe and be open to dialogue without preconditions with the DPRK regarding our ultimate goal here, namely the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Patel said asking Pyongyang to engage in dialogue.

Meanwhile, North Korea said the gunfire was designed to send a serious warning to South Korea in response to the firing of dozens of artillery shells on Tuesday between 9:55 a.m. and 17:22 p.m. local time, according to Reuters from KCNA.

The annual defense exercise, which expires on Saturday, is the latest in a series of military exercises by South Korea in recent weeks, including joint activities with the United States and Japan.

In addition to firing artillery shells, Pyongyang has previously carried out eight rounds of ballistic missile tests since late last month.