North Korea conducted a new round of artillery drills near the western maritime border on Saturday.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Saturday that North Korea fired some 60 artillery shells into waters north of the western sea boundary for an hour from 4 p.m., near South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island. The shells reportedly fell into a buffer zone of the Northern Limit Line (NLL).

The JCS condemned the back-to-back firing exercises as acts of increasing tension and threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula, urging the North to immediately halt artillery firing in the zone where hostile acts are prohibited.

The JCS then vowed to take corresponding military steps if North Korea continues artillery drills that pose a threat to South Korean nationals.

Unlike Friday, the South Korean military did not conduct firing exercises to respond to the North’s drills on Saturday.

A senior defense ministry official said that South Korea did not stage firing exercises after determining that the direction of North Korean shells fired Saturday was less provocative than Friday.

The North fired some 200 artillery shells near the two South Korean western border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong on Friday, prompting islanders to take shelter and the South Korean military to stage live-fire drills in response.

[Photo : YONHAP News]