North Korea has denied firing artillery shots from Yongmae Island toward the Northern Limit Line (NLL) on Wednesday.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported the North’s chief delegate for inter-Korean military talks as saying Thursday that the South had mistaken the North’s detonating work around South Hwanghae Province for artillery shooting.

The North Korean official said the South had fired shots toward the NLL after being stunned by the sound of explosions coming from the North. He claimed that the South is driving inter-Korean relations toward confrontation and further straining such ties by making up a story about the recent issue.

The official said that the South’s various claims about North Korean spies, assassination schemes, and firing of artillery are all aimed at justifying its joint military drills with the United States.