On November 23, 2010, two South Korean soldiers and two civilians died in what Seoul termed was a retaliatory strike around the disputed demarcation line off South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea.
“The fire exercise will be carried out as planned,” Jeon Ha-kyu was quoted as saying at a daily briefing by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the North Korean southwest military unit said Pyongyang will respond “mercilessly” if the test went ahead.
The United Nations named the Yeonpyeong exchange one of the most serious incidents since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The two countries, still legally at war since that time, have only an armistice in place following the collapse of peace treaty negotiations.
North Korea disputes both the version of the November 23, 2010, events and the position of the demarcation line in the Yellow Sea region.
