SKorea conducts artillery drills; NKorea says it won’t retaliate

North Korea backs down on threat to attack as South conducts military drills

Residents of the tiny island of Yeonpyeong waited anxiously to see if North Korea would carry out its threat to resume shelling. But the North said the exercises were not worth reacting to.

South Korea on Monday conducted an hourlong live-fire artillery drill on an island at the center of recent tensions on the Korean peninsula, but North Korea, which had pledged to attack the South if the exercises took place, later said that it would not retaliate. The exercises, the North said, were not worth reacting to.

Residents of Yeonpyeong and other South Korean front-line islands had been ordered into bomb shelters before the drills began in case the North attacked. And soon after the exercises began, South Korea announced that it had deployed jet fighters in case of a North Korean attack, according to Seoul’s Yonhap news service.

The South Korean media reported that the drills ended at 3:30 p.m., but other news outlets said that eyewitnesses on Yeonpyeong Island later heard what sounded like artillery fire.

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