N Korea-artillery

SEOUL, Oct. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korean artillery deployed along the western front line appears to be legacy weaponry rather than a new system that Pyongyang recently threatened to forward-deploy, a South Korean military official said Tuesday.

What appears to be North Korean self-propelled artillery has been spotted farther south than its usual positions along the western front near the inter-Korean border, close enough to be captured by South Korean media cameras.

Photos taken by Yonhap News Agency from an observation deck at a park in Gimpo, west of Seoul, showed what experts say appears to be a 122 millimeter self-propelled howitzer deployed in a coastal border area of Kaepung County, Hwanghae Province.

"Our understanding is that North Korea has deployed legacy artillery along coastal areas in plain view," the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) spokesperson Capt. Jang Do-young said in a press briefing when asked for comment on the development.

"While North Korea has mentioned new weapons systems in its recent statements, we believe that this cannot be considered as such," he said.

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has threatened to deploy "new tactical weapons" along the heavily fortified border and restart anti-South propaganda broadcasts in response to South Korean warning broadcasts and warnings shots.

The South Korean military has issued the repeated warnings over Pyongyang's border fortification activities, which Seoul sees have extended far south to breach the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) separating the two Koreas.

Revealed in the photos was a North Korean propaganda slogan painted on the armored vehicle that read "Annihilate the U.S. imperialist aggressors, the sworn enemies of the Korean people!"

Several North Korean soldiers were seen raising red flags nearby, in what appeared to be a military drill.

North Korean troops have been spotted building tactical roads and fences in recent months as part of ongoing border reinforcement efforts driven by leader Kim's push to formalize inter-Korean relations as "two hostile states."

However, this marks the first time North Korea has deployed a heavy weapons system directly along the border, a move that observers view as highly unusual.

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