Press Statement of Kim Yo Jong, Department Director of WPK Central Committee

Pyongyang, October 19 (KCNA) -- Kim Yo Jong, department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, released the following press statement "We don't say empty words about protection of our sovereignty" on Oct. 19:

Now the situation of the southern border is very unstable.

A grave situation is prevailing along the southern border due to the reckless behavior of the ROK military gangsters.

The warmongers of the ROK military are seriously threatening the safety of our service personnel by firing warning shots at them with automatic rifles and large-calibre machine guns under such unreasonable pretext that the personnel, involved in fortifying the southern border, "crossed the borderline". Such provocations began in August, alongside warning loudspeaker blaring. They committed 2 870 rounds of provocative loudspeaker warning and 201 warning shot provocations from August 1 to October 17.

Such enemy provocations, more openly perpetrated in the wake of a fabricated "mine explosion farce", have gone beyond the red line.

The provocative loudspeaker blaring frequently comes from the posts in the deployment areas of the 7th and 15th Infantry Divisions of the Second Corps and the 21st and 22nd Infantry Divisions of the Third Corps of the ROK army. The provocative warning shots mostly come from the 278 military policemen post in the demilitarized zone under the 21st Infantry Division of its Third Corps. In actuality, provocative loudspeaker blaring was committed 998 times and warning shots 91 times in the period between Oct. 1 and 17.

Notably, the ROK military gangsters committed grave provocations escalating tensions by repeating provocative loudspeaker warning over 350 times and warning fire 60-odd times from October 15 to 17 in different areas adjacent to the southern border.

All the facts prove that the Lee Jae Myung regime, which exhibited "appeasement appearance," advocating "reconciliation" and "peace" from the outset of its office, has far outpaced the die-hard conservative regime of Yoon Suk Yeol, ill-famed for openly pursuing anti-communism, in escalating confrontation with the DPRK.

The main purpose of the military gangsters' such provocations is to "showcase" their "tough response" and disturb the fortification of our southern border.

But such reckless provocations will surely boomerang on the perpetrators, extremely imperiling the situation and bringing a terrible disaster on them.

To cope with the prevailing situation, our military leadership is examining the issues of deploying more tactical strike means along the southern border as a preemptive and suppressive measure to deal with contingency, and of resuming the loudspeaker broadcasting against the ROK, and considering other necessary and appropriate measures.

We seriously warn the ROK military gangsters against their reckless acts of aggravating the situation by constantly threatening the border security of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the safety of our service personnel.

Seoul will surely regret and face uncontrollably terrible danger, for such useless bravery of the military gangsters.

Explicitly speaking once again, we do not say empty words about the protection of our sovereignty. -0-