South Korea dismissed North Korea's claim that it fired artillery shells at a shooting range near the inter-Korean border.

Calling the allegation "groundless," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday that there was no artillery firing by the South Korean military in the region where the North claimed.

In a statement carried by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency earlier in the day, the spokesperson for the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army said that the South fired about 30 artillery shells at a range in Paju, Gyeonggi Province in the morning. 

The General Staff denounced the alleged firing as a very grave military provocation that aggravates the situation on the peninsula, calling for an immediate halt to provocations near the Military Demarcation Line.

The North Korean claim came amid strong criticism by Pyongyang of joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States.